Practice question · Estimate
An adult human has roughly cells, all descended from one fertilised egg. Set the approximate number of successive doublings this represents.
Estimate on a scale from None (0) to 100 doublings (100).
Hints
- Each doubling multiplies the count by two, so ask what power of 2 reaches 10 to the 13.
- Since 2 to the 10 is about 1000, three such blocks give 10 to the 9; you need a little over four.
Show the answer
43 (answers within ±4 count)
Why
Because , reaching needs about doublings. Exponential growth covers an enormous range in remarkably few steps, which is also why uncontrolled division is so dangerous.
Practise From Single Cells to Multicellular Bodies
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