Originally, a Petri dish contained 200,000 bacteria. After a scientist applied an antibiotic, the number of bacteria decreased by 75% per hour.
Which function could model this situation?
How many bacteria will be in the Petri dish after 3 hours?
Round your answer to the nearest whole number.
bacteria
The function that could model this situation is:
f(t) = 200,000 * (1 - 0.75)^t
where t represents the number of hours.
To find how many bacteria will be in the Petri dish after 3 hours, substitute t = 3 into the function:
f(3) = 200,000 * (1 - 0.75)^3
Using a calculator, evaluate this expression to get:
f(3) ≈ 200,000 * (0.25)^3 ≈ 200,000 * 0.015625 ≈ 3125
Therefore, after 3 hours, there will be approximately 3125 bacteria in the Petri dish.