The colony will contain 117,107 bacteria in 3 hours
Here, we start by writing an exponential function that can represent the question
We have this as;
[tex]N=I(1+r)^t[/tex]N is the number of bacteria at a particular time t
I is the initial number of bacteria which is 77,000
r is the growth rate which is 15% = 15/100 = 0.15
t is the time in hours = 3
Substituting these values, we have it that;
[tex]\begin{gathered} N=77,000(1+0.15)^3 \\ N=77,000(1.15)^3 \\ N\text{ = 117,107} \end{gathered}[/tex]This answer is given to the nearest whole number
