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Example

At the start of an experiment, a bacteria colony has mass tex2html_wrap_inline252 grams. After two hours, tex2html_wrap_inline254 grams. Find the growth rate r of the colony. Find the mass of the colony after 10 hours.

  > solve(M=M0*exp(r*t),r);

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  > M0:=2*10^(-9);

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  > M2:= 1.5*10^(-8);

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  > r:=solve(M2 = M0 * exp(r*2), r);

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  > mass_10 := M0 * exp(r*10);

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The growth rate of the colony is r = 1.00745. Using this information, the mass of the colony after 10 hours is tex2html_wrap_inline260 .



Roxanne Tisch
Tue Sep 24 13:59:38 EDT 1996