Things change over time!
Jenn, Founder Calcworkshop®, 15+ Years Experience (Licensed & Certified Teacher)
And in many situations a quantity, like population or element, changes at a rate that is proportional to the amount that is initially present.
When this happens, we have what is referred to as an Exponential Growth and Decay Function.
Thankfully, we have one super-easy Exponential Growth and Decay Formula!
Yep, it doesn’t matter if the population is growing or the decreasing (decaying), this one formula can handle it all!
The trick is to focus on what we are given, and plug our information into our formula in a specific order.
No problem!
We will definitely have to draw upon our knowledge of both Exponents and Logarithms to help us in simplifying, but the process is straightforward and cookie-cutter!
Together we will look at five problems dealing with population size, radioactive decay models, and half-life all while using this one easy to remember equation:
Exponential Growth Equation
But this formula isn’t just limited to population of a city or how an element on the periodic table decays over time. In fact, we can use the Exponential Growth and Decay Formula to find snow depth levels, the magnitude of a star, how temperature affects a body, or how a fast-food chain expands its business as Khan Academy nicely shows.
Exponential Growth – Video
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