Brian Bowers

MATH 20D
Homework 1
January 10, 2012

Homework 1
1.1 #24 A certain drug is being administered intravenously to a hospital patient. Fluid containing
5mg/cm3 of the drug enters the patients bloodstream at a rate of 100cm3 /h. The drug is absorbed by
body tissues or otherwise leaves the bloodstream at a rate proportional to the amount present, with a rate
constant of 0.4(h)1 .
(a) Assuming that the drug is always uniformly distributed throughout the bloodstream, write a differential
equation for the amount of the drug that is present in the bloodstream at any time.
(b) How much of the drug is present in the bloodstream after a long time?
We want M to represent the mass of the drug in the bloodstream.
3

mg
cm
(a) We want to write an equation for M 0 . Since the it enters at a rate of 5 cm
= 500 mg
3 100 h
h , and since
it leaves at a rate proportional to the amount present [M mg] with a specified rate constant [0.4(h)1 ],
we find that the drug leaves at a rate of 0.4(h)1 M mg = .4M mg
h . Thus, in the end, we find the
differential equation
M 0 = 500 .4M

(b) I will create a direction field for M 0 . The most important feature on the direction field is the equilibrium
solution (which means that M 0 = 0. We solve 0 = 500 0.4M = 0.4M = 500 = M = 1250. We
can look at values close to 1250 to get a clear picture of what happens.

We can see based on this direction field that the amount of the drug will approach 1250 after a long
time.


1.2 #13 The half-life of a radioactive material is the time required for an amount of this material to
decay to one-half its original value. Show that for any radioactive material that decays according to the
equation Q0 = rQ, the half-life and the decay rate r satisfy the equation r = ln 2.
Lets solve the differential equation that were given.
dQ
= rQ
dt
dQ
= rdt [separating variables]
Q
ln |Q| = rt + C [integrating]
Q = ert+C

Now, we need to use an initial condition to solve for C. We can refer to the initial amount of the substance
as Q0 . Thus, Q(0) = Q0 . Thus, we can solve to see that
Q0 = er(0)+C
Q0 = eC
C = ln Q0

Thus, the differential equations solution is Q = ert+ln Q0 , which we can rewrite as Q = eln Q0 ert , which
can in trun rewrite as Q = Q0 ert . Now lets use this equation to find the half-life. If the amount of the
substance remaining is one-half of its original value at time t = , then the amount is Q0 /2. So, we see that
Q0
= Q0 er
2
1
= er [dividing by Q0 ]
2
ln 2 = r [taking the ln of both sides]
r = ln 2 [dividing both sides by 1]