A researcher is studying the population growth of a certain type of bacteria in a petri dish. The population, , in thousands, can be modeled by the equation , where is the time in hours since the experiment began. This model is valid for . Which of the following statements is true about the bacteria population according to this model?
The initial population of bacteria was 150 thousand.
The population increases by 500 thousand bacteria every hour.
The maximum predicted population is 2,000 thousand bacteria.
At , the model predicts no bacteria are present.
