Estimating Microbial Growth

Question 1

What is estimating microbial growth?

Answer 1

bacteria divide by binary fission they double every generation

1,2,4,8,16,32

Question 2

Example question:

If bacteria divide every 25 min, how many bacteria will there be if a single bacterium divides for 9 hours?

Answer 2

no. of bacteria in starting pop. x 2^n = no.of bacteria after n generations

n = no.of generations

60 / 25mins = 2.4 gennerations per hour

2.4 gen genhr x 9hr = 21.6 generations

1 x 2^21.6 = 3178688.029
= 3.18 x 10^6