the table shows the predicted growth of particular bacterium after various numbers of hours. Write an explicit formula for the sequence of the number of bacterium.

Answer 1

Let the number of bacterium after 𝑛 hours be denoted by 𝐵𝑛.

𝐵0 = starting number of bacterium
𝐵1 = 𝐵0 × growth factor
𝐵2 = 𝐵1 × growth factor
𝐵3 = 𝐵2 × growth factor
.
.
.
𝐵𝑛 = 𝐵𝑛-1 × growth factor

Thus, the explicit formula for the sequence of the number of bacterium is:

𝐵𝑛 = 𝐵0 × growth factor^n