A Petri dish containing 500,000 bacteria is used in an experiment investigating growth rates for bacteria. The table below shows the number of bacteria, N(t), in the Petri dish after t minutes.

Step-by-step explanation:

The complete question in the attached figure

we know that

The equation of a exponential growth function is given by

where

N(t) is the number of bacteria

t is the time in minutes

a is the initial value

r is the rate of change

we have

substitute

Find the value of r

Looking at the table

For t=1 min, N(t)=520,000

substitute in the exponential equation

therefore

step-by-step explanation:

(s)he  is right it would be 5.5% because it is smaller than 15.5% or anything smaller than 15.5% in general