
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
The bacteria in a petri dish double every 30 seconds. After four minutes, there are 65,536 bacteria in the dish. How many bacteria were in the dish at the beginning of the experiment?

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
user