How to Calculate Exponential Population Growth
Exponential growth refers to a growth pattern where the amount of the increase is proportional to the current size of the population, such as a growth rate of 4 percent rather than linear growth where the growth is unrelated to the current size of the population, such as a growth rate of 100 people per year. Exponential growth can be used to predict future populations of bacteria cultures, wildlife populations or even the number of humans in the world. To calculate exponential population growth, you need to know the periodic rate, how many periods are being covered and the original population.
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Instructions
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Multiply the periodic rate times the number of periods of time that pass and call the result "X." For example, if the population in which you are interested grows at 2 percent per year, and you want to calculate what the population, which in this example is 100,000 people, will be in 10 years, you would multiply 0.02 (the decimal form of 2 percent) times 10 (the number of years) to get 0.2 (this is "X").
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Raise "e" (the base of the natural logarithms) to the Xth power. The constant "e" equals approximately 2.71828. In this example, you would raise "e" to the 0.2 power to get 1.221402594.
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Multiply the original size of the population by the the result from Step 2 to calculate what the population will be in the specified time period if population grows exponentially. Finishing the example, if the original population size was 100,000, you would multiply 100,000 by 1.221402594 to find that in 10 years the population would be 122,140.
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References
- Photo Credit world population image by Marvin Gerste from Fotolia.com
