Putting It Together
Most cities grow exponentially. You should know after completing this module that since populations are growing continuously as babies are born each day, a city’s population can be modeled by the equation: P = P0ert where P0 is your initial population of where you start measuring from, t is the time since your first measurement and r is the continuous growth rate. This is actually a fairly simple formula, but it has major implications. Let’s look at three cities whose original populations are measured in millions:| City | Pop in 10 years | Pop in 20 years | Pop in 50 years | |
| A | P = 0.5e0.04t | 0.746 | 1.113 | 3.694 |
| B | P = 0.8e−0.01t | 0.724 | 0.655 | 0.485 |
| C | P = 1.5e0.01t | 1.628 | 1.832 | 2.473 |
Licenses & Attributions
CC licensed content, Original
- Authored by: Paul Jones and Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution.
