Question

Shortly after their arrival, Europeans began introducing pigs to the Americas as a source of food. Some escaped, and others were intentionally released into the wild,
where they thrived. Assume that the wild pig population is modeled by the
formula P = P0•(1.2)^t .If there were five million wild pigs in 2010 (no one really knows the exact number), what was the population of wild pigs in 2000?

Answer 1

Answer: About 800 thousand

The more accurate value is 807,528 but this is also an approximation.

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Work Shown:

$t = \text{number of years since the year 2000}$

$P_0 = \text{population (in millions) in the year 2000}$

$P = P_0(1.2)^t\\\\5 = P_0(1.2)^{10}\\\\5 \approx P_0*6.1917364224\\\\P_0 \approx \frac{5}{6.1917364224}\\\\P_0 \approx 0.80752791444922\\\\P_0 \approx 0.807528$

That's the rough population of wild pigs (in millions) for the year 2000.

Multiply by $10^6$ to get it in terms of units instead.

$0.807528\times10^6 = 807,528$

There were roughly 800 thousand wild pigs in the year 2000.