Since the opening up of the West, the US population has moved westward. To observe this, we look at the “population center” of t
he US, which is the point at which the country would balance if it were a flat plate with no weight, and every person had equal weight. In 1790 the population center was east of Baltimore, Maryland. It has been moving westward ever since, and in 2000 it was in Edgar Springs, Missouri. During the second half of the 20th century, the population center has moved about 50 miles west every 10 years. Let us measure position westward from Edgar Springs along the line running through Baltimore. For the years since 2000, express the approximate position of the population center as a function of time in years from 2000.