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As of 2017, it is estimated that the world population is about 7.6 billion. World leaders,
sociologist, and anthropologists, are interested in studying population, including its growth.
Mathematics can be used to model population growth.
The following two function formulas were used to easily illustrate the concepts of growth and
decay in applied situations. If a quantity grows by a fixed percent at regular intervals, the pattern can
be depicted by these functions.
x
Remember that the original exponential formula was y= a b .
You will notice that in these new growth and decay functions,
the b value (growth factor) has been replaced either by (1 + r) or by (1 - r).
The growth "rate" (r) is determined as b =1+ r.
The decay "rate" (r) is determined as b = 1 - r
Example 1: The population of hometown in 2016 was estimated to be 35,000 people with an
annual rate of increase of 2.4%.
a) What is the growth factor for hometown?
c) Use the equation to estimate the population in 2020 to the nearest hundred people.
Solution:
The bacteria do not wait until the end of the 24 hours, and then all reproduce at once.
The exponential” e” is used when modeling continuous growth that occurs naturally such as
populations, bacteria, radioactive decay, etc. You can think of e like a universal constant representing
how fast you could possibly grow using a continuous process. And, the beauty of e is that not only is
it used to represent continuous growth, but it can also represent growth measured periodically across
time.
A = A0 e k t
If we compare this new formula to our previous exponential decay formula (or growth formula),
we can see how e k is related to the rate of decay, r, (or growth).
Example: A strain of bacteria growing on your desktop doubles every 5 minutes. Assuming that
you start with only one bacterium, how many bacteria could be present at the end of 96 minutes?
(bacteria continuously grow)
Solution:
Now, form the equation using this k value, and solve the problem using the time of 96 minutes.