Exponential growth and decay worksheet pdf with answers

Examples of such phenomena include the studies of populations, bacteria, the AIDS virus, radioactive substances, electricity, temperatures and credit payments, to mention a few. Any quantity that grows or decays by a fixed percent at regular intervals is said to possess exponential growth or exponential decay.

The function P = P 0 e r t can be used to model population growth where is the initial population, is the growth rate, and is time. The exponential decay function can be written as f ( x ) = a ( 1 − r ) x where is the starting amount and is the rate of decay.

Exponential growth occurs when a quantity increases by the same factor over equal intervals of time, whereas exponential decay occurs when a quantity decreases by the same factor over equal intervals of time.