A culture of bacteria doubles every 2 hours. if there are 500 bacteria at the beginning, how many bacteria will there be after 24 hours?

This question is exponential; the basic formula is (final amount) = (initial amount) * 2^(total hours ÷ time it takes to double)  So if F = final amount and t = time in hours,  [tex]F=500*2^ \frac{t}{2} [/tex] and for this one,  [tex]F=500*2^ \frac{24}{2} [/tex][tex]F=500*2^1^2[/tex][tex]F = 2048000 [/tex]

There are 500 bacteria at the beginning and they double every 2 hours. So, if you want to find the number of the bacteria after 2 hours, you must multiply 500 by 2; after 4 hours - multiply 500 by 4; after 6 hours - multiply 500 by 8; etc.You can write it like this:[tex]x=500 \times 2^{\frac{t}{2}}[/tex]where x is the number of the bacteria after t hours[tex]t=24 \\ \\
x=500 \times 2^\frac{24}{2}=500 \times 2^{12}=500 \times 4096=2048000[/tex]There will be 2,048,000 bacteria after 24 hours.