A 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

A 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 :-)