Thread:OodlesOfTootles/@comment-31677686-20180215200146/@comment-30339728-20180215232437

You may have me here. I need to know the shape of the bacteria - are they spheres or cylinder shape (if so I need the length)

Facts:

If after one minute there are 2 microns total of bacterial matter (the first one micron bacteria divided into two one micron bacteria)

It takes an additional 59 minutes for the jar to be full

Therefore, 2 to the 59th power should be the number of individual bacterial of the container. But without knowing the shape, packing them into a container leaves all kinds of questions. Is there wasted space - as there would be in packing sphere and cylinders. Since you gave the diameter, then cubic shape isn't possible. Or, are they smushible?

However, this does not take into consideration that after mitosis the two daughter cells, while having the same genetic material as the parent, haven't gone into prophase yet to grow big enough to go through mitosis again - unless of course their cell cycle is really short.

Thanks for the fun. I just used a lot of my recent pre-algebra and science lessons and tapped into my daughter's and my own nerdiness. (Her's is way better than mine)

Now my brain hurts.