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The mathematics of the thing are truly frightening. But, such is the nature of geometric progression. However, when geometric progression is applied to Escherichia Coli bacteria, and given the fact that the number of those bacteria can double every 20 minutes, it means that a single bacteria can produce eight bacteria in an hour. That doesn't sound like very many, until one realizes that every following hour, the number increases by a factor of 8. Thus, a single bacteria, in a 24 hour period, can produce 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 bacteria. That's a LOT of bacteria.

Fortunately, not all Escherichia Coli bacteria are bad. Some of them live in the human intestines, and are beneficial, due to the production of vitamin K2, and their prevention of nasty bacteria from invading that territory. Of course, Escherichia Coli in the wrong part of the digestive system can cause problems, such as food poisoning.

Escherichia Coli are also quite important for genetic engineering, and have been used to produce quite a few proteins, including human Insulin, on which a significant number of people with Diabetes Mellitus depend for their survival.

Dave