[Math] calculus minimizing cost function

calculus

A lab uses 600 mice each year. It cost 4 dollars to feed a mouse for one year. Each time mice are ordered there is a service fee of 12$. How many mice should be ordered each time to minimize the cost of feeding the mice and placing orders?

Best Answer

Assumptions

The question is lacking in some specifics so here are my assumptions:

The mice are used up at an equal rate over the year. As such the food requirements decreases (or there would be no real need for calculus). For example buying 600 mice at the start of a year would end up only needing feed for 300 as the mice get used up over the year. So each mice effectively only eats \$2 worth of food.

Breakdown

The problem is now about how often to order the mice vs how long the need storage/feeding. If we buy infrequently we have bigger feeding costs but low service fee. If we buy frequently we have low feeding costs buy high service fee.

Solution

Let us order mice $n$ times per year. The service fee is therefore $12n$. We will be keeping $\frac{600}{n}$ mice for $\frac{1}{n}$ of a year. From above each mouse only eats the $\frac{\$2}{n}$ of food for this period. This occurs $n$ times so the food cost is:

$$n\times\frac{600}{n}\times\frac{2}{n}=\frac{1200}{n}$$

So the total cost is: $$C=12n+1200n^{-1}$$

Calculus can be used to find the minimum.

$$\frac{dC}{dn}=12-1200n^{-2}$$

The minimum will occur when $\frac{dC}{dn}=0$

$$0=12-1200n^{-2}$$

$$1200n^{-2}=12$$

$$100=n^2$$

$$n=10$$

As ${\frac{dC}{dn}}_{n=9}<0$ and ${\frac{dC}{dn}}_{n=11}>0$ we can see that $n=10$ is a minimum and not a maximum.

So 60 mice should be bought ten times per year.

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