1. Problem Introduction

Consider the following: A medical researcher wants to determine the effect of pH (a measure of alkalinity or acidity, with pure water having a pH of 7) on the growth of a bacteria culture. The data provided to you below represents the measurements of different cultures (in thousands of bacteria) after 8 hours

pH Number of Bacteria (thousands)

4 116

5 120

6 131

7 136

8 141

9 151

10 148

11 163

identify a scatter plot to represent the data:

Based on the data and your scatter plot, what do you think a good linear function would be to represent the data? Justify your decision as best as you can.