A large pharmaceutical company uses the function f(x) = 1.889x-3143 to model the amount of money, in billions of dollars, it spends each year on research and development, where x corresponds to the year. Use the function to predict the amount of money it will spend in 2017.
To find the amount of money the company will spend in 2017, we substitute x = 2017 into the function f(x):
f(2017) = 1.889(2017) - 3143
= 3802.513 - 3143
= 659.513
The company is predicted to spend approximately $659.513 billion on research and development in 2017.