The cells of a certain culture of bacteria double every 6 minutes. If there are 3 cells in a petri dish, how many cells of bacteria will htere be after on and a half hours?
1 1/2 hours = 90 minutes, or 15 doubling periods.
So, there will be 3*2^15 bacteria
To solve this question, we need to determine the number of cell divisions that will occur in one and a half hours, and then calculate the total number of cells.
First, let's convert one and a half hours to minutes.
1.5 hours = 1.5 * 60 = 90 minutes
Since the bacteria double every 6 minutes, we can calculate the number of cell divisions that will occur in 90 minutes by dividing 90 by 6:
Number of Cell Divisions = 90 / 6 = 15
Now that we know there will be 15 cell divisions, we can calculate the total number of cells.
Starting with 3 cells, each cell division doubles the number of cells. Therefore, the total number of cells is given by:
Total Number of Cells = Initial Number of Cells * (2^Number of Cell Divisions)
Total Number of Cells = 3 * (2^15)
Total Number of Cells = 3 * 32,768
Total Number of Cells = 98,304
Therefore, after one and a half hours, there will be approximately 98,304 cells of bacteria in the petri dish.