-A colony of bacteria originally contains 600 bacteria. It doubles in size every 30 minutes. How many hours will it take for the colony to contain 6,000 bacteria? (Round your answer to one decimal place.)

Step 1 ：We are given a problem about exponential growth. The formula for exponential growth is: \(N = N_0 * 2^{(t/T)}\) where: N is the final amount of bacteria, N_0 is the initial amount of bacteria, t is the time elapsed, and T is the doubling time.

Step 2 ：We need to solve for t, so we can rearrange the formula to: \(t = T * log2(N/N_0)\)

Step 3 ：We know that \(N_0 = 600\), \(N = 6000\), and \(T = 0.5\) hours (30 minutes). We can plug these values into the formula and solve for t.

Step 4 ：Substituting the given values into the formula, we get \(t = 0.5 * log2(6000/600)\)

Step 5 ：Solving the equation, we get \(t = 1.660964047443681\)

Step 6 ：Rounding to one decimal place, we get \(t = 1.7\)

Step 7 ：Final Answer: It will take approximately \(\boxed{1.7}\) hours for the colony to contain 6,000 bacteria.