The population of a bacteria in a petri dish doubles every 16 hours. the population of the bacteria is initially 500 organisms. how long will it take for the population of the bacteria to reach 800? round your answer to the nearest tenth of an hour.

An initial population of bacteria is 500 organisms. The population doubles every 16 hours. This gives us an idea that in another 16 hours we will have 1000 organisms. Thus it happens that with the the lapse of 16 hours we will have an additional 500 organisms. We want to find the time that will gives a total of 800 organisms. This means we need to find the time for a population to reach 800-500=300 organisms. Since an additional 500 is produced in 16 hours, 300 organisms will be produced in 16 divided by 500, thereafter multiplied by 300, that is 9.6. The nearest tenth hour makes it 10 hours. It will take 10 hours for the population of the bacteria to reach 800.