the bacteria took 1 hour and 40 minutes to fill the initial bottle. explain how it only took 10 minutes to…

Brief Explanations:

Assume bacteria grow exponentially. In the last 10 - minute interval, the amount of bacteria doubles multiple times. When the first bottle is full, the bacteria population is large enough to quickly fill 3 more bottles in the next 10 - minute period as exponential growth leads to rapid increase in population size.

Answer:

Bacteria grow exponentially. In the last 10 minutes of the 1 - hour - 40 - minute period when the first bottle was filled, the bacteria population had reached a size where it could double enough times to fill 3 additional bottles in the next 10 - minute interval.