The population of a bacteria in a Petri dish doubles every 24 hours. The population of the bacteria is initially 500 organisms. How long will it take for the population of the bacteria to reach 800.

Answer 1

Let's call the time it takes for the population to reach 800 "t" hours.
Since the population of the bacteria doubles every 24 hours, after t hours, the population will be 500 * (2^(t/24)).
We want to solve the equation 500 * (2^(t/24)) = 800.
Divide both sides by 500 to get 2^(t/24) = 1.6.
Take the logarithm of both sides to get t/24 = log2(1.6).
Multiply both sides by 24 to get t = 24 * log2(1.6).
Using a calculator, we find that log2(1.6) is approximately 0.678, so t ≈ 24 * 0.678.
Therefore, it will take approximately 16.27 hours for the population of the bacteria to reach 800 organisms.