Question

In 1998, Terre Haute, Indiana had a population of 72,000 people. In 2000, the population had dropped to 70,379. City officials expect the population to level off eventually at 60,000.

1. What kind of function would best model the population over time ?

2. Write an equation that would model the changing population over time?

Answer 1

1) Picture the equation. It must decrease at an unknown rate, then flatten out as it nears 60K (asymptote). This would be in the family of functions of 1/x because 1/x is the most common function to have asymptotes, which Google seems to call power / reciprocal / rational / inverse function.

2) o.o What class is this for? That's definitely not enough information for any sort of regression model, so the only thing I could think of is guess and check?