(no subject)

[lhexa]

Here's a rather neat problem from my calculus textbook:

"An especially prolific breed of rabbits has the growth term ky^1.01. If 2 such rabbits breed initially and the warren has 16 rabbits after three months, then when is doomsday?"

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_dw/]

How many bunnies do you need for the end of the world?

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

The end of the world comes when the number of bunnies diverges to infinity.

For a reference, see the last page of this (http://coco-m.web.lynchburg.edu/T&P/Math104/differentialequations.pdf) -- Wikipedia is oddly lacking.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_dw/]

Ah, growth rate. I thought it merely meant that the function of the number of bunnies at time y was ky^1.01 for some constant k that you had to determine.

[baktre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, is there a predefined value for 'lapine doomsday'? :)

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Not predefined, no. But in this problem I calculated it to be a little over twelve years from the start.

[celyddon.livejournal.com]

Doomsday is today, of course. Because today started the cycle. :)

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

*grins* I think that would make today the Fall of Rabbit, instead.