Math Question: what is the intial value of y=1.17 to the power of x

y=1.17^x The initial value is 1. These functions are of the form y=ab^x. The initial value is the y-intercept. The y axis is "intercepted" when x=0. When x=0 b^x=1. We don't have an "a" coefficient term here, so the "a" term is 1 (if it was 0, we would have y=0 and it would be a very different looking graph). They might look like y=55(2.2)^x or y=3(0.04)^x. In the first example b=2.2, in the second b=0.04--the behavior of the graph is mostly determined by the value of b. If it's between 0 and 1 it's called "exponential decay" and if it's >1 it's considered exponential growth. They're basically hockey sticks, with decay shooting up to the left and growth shooting up to right, but they get used to model things like bacteria population in nutrient-rich environments (growth) or toxin-rich environments (decay) on a clock, with the time on the clock increasing as you move right along the x-axis.
Answered On 05/27/2020 15:51