TASK: When will the US have more wind turbine technicians than newspaper reporters?
COMMENT: Today, the reporter "population" is decreasing, that is, has a negative growth rate. We can use a simple population model to estimate the number of reporters in the future, based on today's population. Since the number of wind turbine technicians is increasing, then if things continue at this rate, their numbers will eventually exceed the reporters.
The simple population model we have seen says that, if the population has a size P in a certain year, and has an annual growth rate of R, then the next year, the population can be computer by:
POP_OLD = POP;
POP = POP_OLD * ( 1 + R ).
R can be negative, and in that case, the population will decrease.
Assume that, in 2017, there were 41,500 newspaper reporters, and that the reporter population is decreasing at a rate of -0.045; in the same year, there are 4,400 wind turbine technicians, and this population is growing, with a growth rate of 0.075.
Write a program that determines the year in which the number of wind turbine technicians first exceeds the number of reporters.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Initialize the YEAR, R_POP and W_POP
AS LONG AS there are fewer wind turbine technician than reporters
update YEAR
update R_POP
update W_POP
End the loop
Print YEAR, R_POP and W_POP
CHECK: If your program is set up correctly, and you print out the values for the year 2018, you should get
YEAR = 2018
R_POP = 39632
W_POP = 4730
SUBMIT: Your work should be stored in a script file called "hw031.m". Your script file should begin with at least three comment lines:
% hw031.m
% YOUR NAME
% This script (describe what it does)
% Add any comments here that you care to make.