How do I slove this?!?

Question

well here is the question. i hear the answer has a limit and i not sure what it means

The first day she went fishing, she caught exactly 31416 pounds of fish! Even though she had more fish than she knew what to do with, she decided to go fishing again the next day. And she caught exactly 40% of what she caught the day before. Which was still a lot of fish.

She continued fishing every day. And every day she caught exactly 40% of what she caught the previous day.

If she continued fishing every day for twenty years, how many pounds of fish, total, would she catch? round to nearest pound

Answer 1

20 years * 365 days/ 1 year = 7300

S = a1 r^n

n = 7300 days
r = 1.4
a1 = 31416

S = 31416 * 1.4^(7300) = 1.705 x 10 ^1071 pounds

Answer 2

Well I would rather be fishing with your friend but here it goes.

first day 31416
next day 12566.4
next day 5026.56
next day 2010.64
next day 804.256
next day 321.7024
next day 128.68096
next day 51.472384
next day 20.5889536
next day 8.23558144
next day 3.294232576
next day 1.3176930304
next day 0.4707721216

OK, here is part of it, hold on, I am still working this problem, I will submit more in the future, this may take me 20 years to work this problem.

but while I continue to work this problem, you can see above that after the thirteenth day she would only be catching part of a fish, most people would stop fishing there and give up, who wants to go fishing for a half a pound of a fish.

by the way when we get to the end of this problem I will add everything, and then round to the nearest pound, although I hate rounding numbers.

It makes a big difference if you are rounding each day, or rounding your total.

day 14 = 0.18830884864
day 15 = 0.35323539456
day 16 = 0.141294157824
day 17 = 0.0565176631296
day 18 = 0.02260706525184
day 19 = 0.009042826100736
day 20 = 0.0036171304402944
day 21 = 0.00144685217611776
day 22 = 0.000578740870447104
day 23 = 0.0002314963481788416
day 24 = 0.00009259853927153664

still working

I believe steiner1745 is correct regarding geometric progression, I will keep working this problem the hard way though for the fun of it, because I have not learned the easy way yet.

Sorry I was not helpful by explaining how to solve your problem, my way is to complicated and you probably wont have the time to wait for my answer.

The correct answer is definitely 52360 lbs. of fish since we are rounding up and not only was steiner1745 accurate but he was also much quicker at finding the solution than I was.

Answer 3

This is the 3rd time this question has been posted today!!
A homework problem, evidently.
But I'll give a hint and the final answer:
Hint: The solution involves a geometric progression.
Answer: 52360 pounds of fish.
Happy solving!!

Answer 4

This is exactly what is happening in Alaska. If you ask a fisherman there he will tell you. He can't catch enough to pay his bills and he sold his boat. It is sad