Question

A local biologist needs a program to predict population growth. The inputs would be:

1. The initial number of organisms, as an int
2. The rate of growth (a real number greater than 1), as a float
3. The number of hours it takes to achieve this rate, as an int
4. A number of hours during which the population grows, as an int

For example, one might start with a population of 500 organisms, a growth rate of 2, and a growth period to achieve this rate of 6 hours. Assuming that none of the organisms die, this would imply that this population would double in size every 6 hours. Thus, after allowing 6 hours for growth, we would have 1000 organisms, and after 12 hours, we would have 2000 organisms.

Write a program that takes these inputs and displays a prediction of the total population.

An example of the program input and output is shown below:

Enter the initial number of organisms: 10
Enter the rate of growth [a real number > 1]: 2
Enter the number of hours to achieve the rate of growth: 2
Enter the total hours of growth: 6

The total population is 80

Answer 1

SOLUTION

The following python program has been used to calculate or predict the population growth of organisms based on a given growth rate over a period of time.

PROGRAM

# Predict Organic Population Growth

# Get the input values
organisms = int(input('Enter the initial number of organisms: '))
growthRate = int(input('Enter the rate of growth [a real number > 1]: '))
numHours = int(input('Enter the number of hours to achieve the rate of growth: '))
totalHours = int(input('Enter the total hours of growth: '))

hours = 0
# Until hours equal total hours, iteratively calculate organism growth based on growth rate (numHours)
while hours <= totalHours:
    organisms = organisms * growthRate
    hours = hours + numHours

    if hours == totalHours:
        break

print('The total population is: ', organisms)

OUTPUT

Note:

Based on the growth rate the organism growth is calculated. The process is repeated until the hours reach the total period of hours given for the growth.

Hope this helps.