Bacterial Population Growth Calculation

A bacterium reproduces through a process called binary fission, doubling its population every 3 hours. If the initial population of the bacterium is 250, determine the population of the bacterium after 18 hours.

Let the population after $t$ hours be given by the equation:

$$ P(t) = P_0 imes 2^{t/T} $$ where:

- $P_0$ is the initial population,

- $t$ is the elapsed time in hours,

- $T$ is the doubling time in hours (3 hours in this case).