lhexa ([personal profile] lhexa) wrote2008-12-29 08:14 pm

(no subject)

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

"An especially prolific breed of rabbits has the growth term ky1.01. If 2 such rabbits breed initially and the warren has 16 rabbits after three months, then when is doomsday?"

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_dw/ 2008-12-30 01:38 pm (UTC)(link)
How many bunnies do you need for the end of the world?

[identity profile] baktre.livejournal.com 2008-12-30 01:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, is there a predefined value for 'lapine doomsday'? :)

[identity profile] lhexa.livejournal.com 2008-12-30 04:09 pm (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] lhexa.livejournal.com 2008-12-30 04:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Not predefined, no. But in this problem I calculated it to be a little over twelve years from the start.

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_dw/ 2008-12-30 04:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, growth rate. I thought it merely meant that the function of the number of bunnies at time y was ky1.01 for some constant k that you had to determine.

[identity profile] celyddon.livejournal.com 2008-12-30 11:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Doomsday is today, of course. Because today started the cycle. :)

[identity profile] lhexa.livejournal.com 2008-12-31 03:19 am (UTC)(link)
*grins* I think that would make today the Fall of Rabbit, instead.