A student inoculates a sterile nutrient broth with 5.0 × 102 bacterial cells to study the effect of a new antibiotic. Under optimal control conditions, this bacterium has a mean division time of 20 minutes.
The student adds a sublethal concentration of the antibiotic, which increases the mean division time of the bacteria by 50%.
Assuming exponential growth with no cell death, calculate the number of bacterial cells present in the broth after 3 hours of incubation.
3.2×1043.2 \times 10^43.2×104
2.56×1052.56 \times 10^52.56×105
1.6×1041.6 \times 10^41.6×104
6.0×1036.0 \times 10^36.0×103
