Thread: Bacterial Multiplication formula

Hi all,
I'm after some help.

I'm after a formula where i can work out the Bacterial Multiplication formula. An example would be:

if Bacteria multiplies at a rate of 2 every 20 minutes how many would there be after 24 hours?

What would be the manual formula? and is there a formula I can use in microsoft excel?

This should be in biology.

And this is simple algebra btw.

initial population: i
Doubling time per amount of minutes: d
time in minutes: t
x: population


dt=number of doubles
i x (2)^dt = x

So with a hypothetical bacteria with a doubling time of 30 minutes. An initial population of 1 million. After 3 hours (180 min).

(1M) (2)^(6) = x
1M (64) = 64Million bacteria