[Hezekiah]

And I think it's simpler to understand, especially since it's just a small modification from his original code.

[PlasticineGuy]

Note that the modification I was talking about was to simply replace both 1s with i.

[Hezekiah]

That wouldn't work.

Settings:

startSize = 100
annualBirth = 1 (100%)
annualDeath = 0 (0%)

Expected results:

Year 1 population: 100
Year 2 population: 200
Year 3 population: 400

Year 1:

population = startSize
           = 100

Correct!

Year 2:

population = startSize * (i + annualBirth) * (i - annualDeath)
           = 100 * (1 + 1) * (1 - 0)
           = 200

Correct!

Year 3:

population = startSize * (i + annualBirth) * (i - annualDeath)
           = 100 * (2 + 1) * (2 - 0)
           = 600

Wrong!

Now just for fun, let's test my solution.

Year 1:

population = startSize
           = 100

Correct!

Year 2:

population = population * (1 + annualBirth) * (1 - annualDeath)
           = 100 * (1 + 1) * (1 - 0)
           = 200

Correct!

Year 3:

population = population * (1 + annualBirth) * (1 - annualDeath)
           = 200 * (1 + 1) * (1 - 0)
           = 400

Correct!

[clickspiker23]

here is what i went with that works. thank you to all who replied especially Hezekiah and PlasticineGuy

    

 double population = startSize;

for (int i = 1; i <= years; i++)
    {


        cout << "Year " << i << "   population: " << population << endl;

        population =  population * (1 + annualBirth - annualDeath);
       

    
    
    }

ill be honest PlasticineGuy i still don't know what you meant when you kept telling me to use 'i' in the calculation. the only thing i could think of was that 'i' was somehow the population i needed to use and then increment it in a calculation but i could never figure out how. the above for loop does what i want it to.

This post has been edited by clickspiker23: 17 July 2011 - 01:52 PM