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Answer: Decay rate of 9.6%</h3>
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Explanation:
I'm assuming you meant to write y = 26(0.904)^x
This is in the form y = a*b^x with a = 26 as the initial value and b = 0.904 represents the term tied to the growth rate.
Set b equal to 1+r to find that
1+r = b
1+r = 0.904
r = 0.904-1
r = -0.096
The negative r value indicates we have exponential decay. Specifically we have a decay rate of 9.6%
This means the amount of items are decreasing by 9.6% each time.
For example, if we started with 1000 people, then the population goes down by 0.096*1000 = 96 to end up with 1000-96 = 904 people by the end of year 1. We could also compute 1000*0.904 = 904. In this example, I'm using a = 1000 and b = 0.904
