Sp2750 Unit 2 Individual Assignment

The Task:

We started learning about exponents at the beginning of the nuclear culture unit. We learned about positive, negative, fractional, and zero exponents and their effects on the graph. Exponents make a graph exponential, meaning that the graph will either drastically increase rapidly or drastically decrease rapidly. We used our knowledge of exponential growth and decay to understand topics such as interest, population growth and decay, disease growth or decay, radioactive decay, and bacterial growth or decay; after this unit we were able to understand these topics and graph them. The most beneficial concept in this unit was understanding how interest grows and decays. I thought it was interesting how you can know your balance in your

Our group had to study Poliomyelitis and we each researched different parts to get data such as when the vaccine was created, how many people were infected the year before the vaccination, the number of infections this year, and so on. Our group project displayed obvious decay, whereas my individual situation was a slight decay. The graph of my individual assignment appeared linear because the rate was so slight. My indiviidual project was based on the decay of HIV/AIDS, but the number of new cases of HIV/AIDS only decreases very slightly each year in the U.S., .03% to be exact. I based my equation on the number of new cases in 2010 and 2012, which gave me the equation of y=47,500(.997)X. 47,500 was the starting number or the number of cases in 2010, I got the number .997 by subtracting the rate (.003) from the number 1, and the x represents a

To graph population or disease, we needed to use exponents; in equation-form, the exponent was an X, but it could be substituted for any number, which would represent the year. You would also find the current population or number of cases and divide them by the amount the previous year (the starting number) and add that to one to find the rate, which would show you if it was growth or decay. Finally, you use the starting number as your constant or y-intercept. If you were trying to graph the decay of a population, the equation could be: y=150,000(1.5)x; if you were trying to graph decay, the equation could be: y=150,000(0.5)x. You can replace X with any number (number of years) to find the population in the future (positive number) or in the past (negative numbers). Not only was this unit one of the most interesting units, but it was also a unit that I understood very well; this was by far my favorite