4 ms·
People often (in a non-formal context) use exponential as meaning "more than linear". Any idea why this happens? (don't mean to offend the poster here)
by wlievens 16y ago
People often (in a non-formal context) use exponential as meaning "more than linear". Any idea why this happens?
(don't mean to offend the poster here)
- ck2 16y agoNo offense taken. I am not familiar with the term "polynomially" but I assume it means it grows at a rate that is a more complex calculation than a simple exponential curve. (useless to me: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polynomial http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polynomial )
- wlievens 16y agoA polynomial is the sum of terms with powers in them. For instance: y = 3*x y = x*x y = 3*x*x*x + 5*x - 7*x Any polynomial you can think of will always, at some point, grow slower than an exponential curve. So it's not necessarily "more complex", but it's somewhere in between linear and exponential (informally speaking). There's a whole theory behind linear/polynomial/exponential growth that is at the basis of algorithms in computing. If this interests you, you should read up on complexity theory - though learn the basics and stop when it gets too abstract :-)