# Amebas Experiment

• Sep 28th 2008, 09:40 PM
magentarita
Amebas Experiment
The scientists in a laboratory company raise amebas to sell to schoolsfor use in biology classes. They know that one ameba divides into twoamebas every hour and that the formula t = log_2 N can be used to determine how long in hours, t, it takes to produce a certain number
of amebas, N. Determine, to the nearest tenth of an hour, how long it takes to produce 10,000 amebas if they start with one ameba.
• Sep 28th 2008, 10:11 PM
Jhevon
Quote:

Originally Posted by magentarita
The scientists in a laboratory company raise amebas to sell to schoolsfor use in biology classes. They know that one ameba divides into twoamebas every hour and that the formula t = log_2 N can be used to determine how long in hours, t, it takes to produce a certain number
of amebas, N. Determine, to the nearest tenth of an hour, how long it takes to produce 10,000 amebas if they start with one ameba.

you want $t = \log_2 10000$
• Sep 29th 2008, 09:38 PM
magentarita
Can you...
Quote:

Originally Posted by Jhevon
you want $t = \log_2 10000$

Can you explain a bit more?
• Oct 1st 2008, 08:31 AM
Jhevon
Quote:

Originally Posted by magentarita
Can you explain a bit more?

they told us that the amoeba divide according to $t = \log_2 N$, where $t$ is the number of hours since they began and $N$ is the number of amoebas. if we want to know the time when we have 10000 amoebas, we just plug in $N = 10000$ and solve for
$t$
• Oct 1st 2008, 04:25 PM
magentarita
ok
Quote:

Originally Posted by Jhevon
they told us that the amoeba divide according to $t = \log_2 N$, where $t$ is the number of hours since they began and $N$ is the number of amoebas. if we want to know the time when we have 10000 amoebas, we just plug in $N = 10000$ and solve for
$t$

Ok...much better.