How Many Cells Would You Have in 200 Minutes with a Generation Time of 20 Minutes?

Question:

If you have a generation time of 20 minutes and you started with 10 cells, how many cells would you have in 200 minutes?

Answer:

After 200 minutes with a generation time of 20 minutes and starting with 10 cells, there would be 10,240 cells.

Generation time refers to the time required for a population of cells to double. In this scenario, the generation time is 20 minutes, meaning that the number of cells will double every 20 minutes. Starting with an initial count of 10 cells, we can calculate the total number of cells after 200 minutes following these steps:

  1. Calculate the number of generations that occur in 200 minutes by dividing 200 by the generation time (20 minutes):

    2. 200 minutes / 20 minutes = 10 generations

  2. Since one generation involves the doubling of the cell count, we need to multiply the initial cell count by 2 for each generation that passes:

    3. 10 cells x 2^10 = 10 x 1024 = 10,240 cells

Therefore, after 200 minutes with a generation time of 20 minutes and starting with 10 cells, the total number of cells would be 10,240.

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