Question
The population of a virus in a host can be modeled by the function
that satisfies the differential equation
, where
is measured in millions of virus cells and
is measured in days for
. At
time
days, there are 10 million cells of the virus in the host.
(a) Write an equation for the line tangent to the graph of
at
. Use the tangent line to approximate the
number of virus cells in the host, in millions, at time
days.
time
(a) Write an equation for the line tangent to the graph of
number of virus cells in the host, in millions, at time
Ask by Montgomery Martinez. in the United States
Jan 22,2025
Upstudy AI Solution
Tutor-Verified Answer
Answer
At
, the tangent line has a slope of 3. The equation of the tangent line is
. Using this line to approximate
, the number of virus cells at
days is approximately 16 million.
Solution

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The Deep Dive
To find the equation of the tangent line to the graph of
at
, we need the value of
and the derivative
. We already know that
million cells.
Next, we calculate
using the given differential equation:
Substituting
and
:
Now we have the point
and the slope
. The equation of the tangent line can be written in point-slope form:
Simplifying this, we get:
To approximate the number of virus cells in the host at
:
Thus, the tangent line approximates that at
days, there are approximately 16 million virus cells in the host.