On its first trip between Maltby and Grenlish, a steam train uses 1.5 tonnes of coal. As the train does more trips, it becomes less efficient so that each subsequent trip uses 2% more coal than the previous trip.
- Show that the amount of coal used on the fifth trip is 1.624 tonnes, correct to 4 significant figures. [2]
- There are 39 tonnes of coal available. An engineer wishes to calculate \(N\), the total number of trips possible. Show that \(N\) satisfies the inequality
$$1.02^N < 1.52.$$ [4]
- Hence, by using logarithms, find the greatest number of trips possible. [4]