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Most humans have a really hard time with exponential processes. They are hard for them to spot and truly understand. So when something goes 1, 2, 4, 8 they see
by jgrahamc 7y ago
Most humans have a really hard time with exponential processes. They are hard for them to spot and truly understand. So when something goes 1, 2, 4, 8 they see it as linear and when it's doubling with larger numbers they suddenly get it. And then it's too late.
- Someone 7y ago1, 2, 4, 8 isn’t that different from 1, 3, 5, 7. You need more sample points, larger multipliers, or prior expectation of seeing an exponential curve to see that as exponential growth.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago> 1, 2, 4, 8 isn’t that different from 1, 3, 5, 7. What? The former is exponential and the latter is linear. They are the definition of different. The 30th number in the first series is 536870912. The 30th number in the second series is 59.
- ash 7y ago> [1, 2, 4, 8] is exponential and [1, 3, 5, 7] is linear. You can't say just from 4 data points. Real data is noisy. Imagine each number is ±1.
- nullc 7y agoTo be fair, people-- even experts (checkout the first 538 survey of experts) and authorities-- have happily pretended covid19's behavior was linear even when the linear fit was many sigma away from the measurements... I agree that it's worthwhile intuition in many cases, but really not here and even people equipt with both the data and the mathematical expertise to use it there have also made many bad calls on this.