At 4:00 p.m.a closed flask of sterile broth is inoculated with 10,000 cells.The lag phase lasts 1 hour.At 9:00 p.m.the log phase culture has a population of 65 million cells.The mean generation time is approximately

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The log phase lasts from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., which is 4 hours or 240 minutes. The population grows from 10,000 to 65 million, which is a 6,500-fold increase. Using the formula for exponential growth, the mean generation time is approximately 20 minutes.

At 4:00 PM