Question

One of the reasons bacteria can be so deadly is because they multiply very quickly. E. coli has a doubling time of around 15 minutes. This means that if 100 bacteria are left alone for 2 hours, they will multiply to become:

Answer 1

Answer: There will be a number of 25600 bacteria after 2 hours.

Explanation: This problem requires some simple math to solve.

We were told that E. coli doubles approximately every 15 minutes. Meaning that, after just 15 minutes, our colony of 100 bacteria is now a colony of 200 bacteria and so forth:

100 * 2^1 = 200

There are 4 15-minute periods in an hour, thus there are 8 15-minute periods in two hours. Therefore, the bacteria will have doubled their population size 8 times:

100 * 2^8 = 25,600