Answer to Question #159127 in Algebra for Jan

Question

What is the difference between exponential growth and exponential decay? Discuss the difference in their b-values. 

Answer 1

Exponential growth happens when the base of our exponential is bigger than 1 which means that the number gets bigger, while exponential decay happens when the base of exponential is between 1 and 0 and the number gets smaller and smaller.

In exponential expression b is called the base and x is called the exponent. An example of an exponential function is the growth of bacteria. Some bacteria triples every hour. If you start with 1 bacterium and it triples every hour, you will have 3^x bacteria after x hours. This can be written as f(x) = 3^x.