Question

Alton has been recording the number of apples on his apple tree each week:

Answer 1

1 represent the number of apples at the start.

Answer 2

For this case we have the following function:

$f (w) = 7w + 1$

We have the following variables:

w: number of weeks

f (w): total number of apples

For the beginning, that is, week zero we have:

$f (0) = 7 (0) + 1\\f (0) = 0 + 1\\f (0) = 1$

That is, at the beginning there was an apple.

Answer:

the 1 represents:

The number of apples at the start