A bacteria population is growing exponentially with a growth factor of 18 each hour. By what growth factor does the population change each half hour?

The bacteria population has an exponential growth with a factor of 18 per hour. The growth factor has to be determined for the population change each half hour.

Step 2

To find the growth factor for every half an hour as follows,

For an exponential function,$\text{Growth factor of one hour}=(\text{Growth factor of half an hour}{)}^2$ K Assuming growth factor of half an hour as x, $18=x^{2}x=\sqrt{18}x=3\sqrt{2}$

 Hence the growth factor is $x=3\sqrt{2}$