Thursday, July 4, 2013

Hand sanitizer kills a certain bacterium 80% of the time on each application. What is the minimum number of times you must use the hand sanitizer to be 98% certain you have killed that bacterium?

We'll write: 
P=0.8%5En 
and 98% implies P=1-0.98 = 0.02 

Solving... 
ln%28P%29=ln%280.8%5En%29 

n=ln%280.02%29%2Fln%280.8%29=17.53 

so we need to apply 18 times 

:)

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