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What is k?

Up: Lakes as Well-Mixed... Previous: The Fisherman

We now continue with answering how much gasoline is left in the reservoir, and if the stream will need to be cleaned up.

We have determined that the situation in the problem of the fisherman and the gasoline can best be modeled by an impulse input function. We also need to decide what kind of reaction occurs. (In this module, we are considering only k =0 and k constant, so we will have to decide between those.)

Let's suppose that gasoline does not react with water, sediment, or microbes in the lake at all. Given this assumption, what should we select for k ?


John Hoggard <hoggard@math.vt.edu>
Last modified: Sun Aug 24 14:36:06 EDT 1997