Over the past two decades the Internet has grown very rapidly. Figures A and B provide e...

Over the past two decades the Internet has grown very rapidly. Figures A and B provide estimates for the number n of Internet host computers, worldwide, for the years t = 2003–2007 and 1985–1987.

(a) Use Figure A to complete the following table. Round the values of n to the nearest ten million. Then use the midpoint formula and the numbers in your table to estimate the global number of Internet host computers for the year 2005.

(b) Use Figure B to complete the following table. Round the values of n to the nearest two thousand. Then use the midpoint formula and the numbers in your table to estimate the global number of Internet host computers for the year 1986.

(c) Compute the percentage errors to determine which estimate, the one for 1986 or the one for 2005, is more accurate. Use the following data from Network Wizards (http//www.nw.com) in computing the percentage errors: The number of host computers for 1986 and 2005 were 5089 and 317,646,084, respectively. (Round each answer to the nearest one percent.)

Note: You’ll find out in part (c) that one estimate is very good, the other is way off. The point here is that without more initial information, it’s hard to say whether the midpoint formula will produce a useful estimate. In subsequent chapters, we’ll use functions and larger data sets to obtain more reliable estimates.