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"Exponential processes just don't really exist in nature". Hopefully no one (cough, politicians) says this anymore, after Covid-19.
by nick_kline 7y ago
"Exponential processes just don't really exist in nature". Hopefully no one (cough, politicians) says this anymore, after Covid-19.
- ineedasername 7y ago"Exponential processes just don't really exist in nature" Wait, do people actually say that?
- cultus 7y agoExponential processes don't exist. Anything that looks exponential is the just exponential part of a logistic-like curve.
- zxcmx 7y agoWell you very quickly run out of mass, space, hosts etc so on a long enough timescale... Like an exponential process that starts at 1 atom with a 1 year doubling time would affect all the matter in the universe in less than a century (lets pretend it happens spookily at whatever distance).
- ineedasername 7y agoOn a long enough timescale they may burn themselves out, but on a long enough time scale everything comes to an end. Things happen, and then they stop happening. Exponential growth occurs, and then it stops occurring. Its eventual end does not disprove its prior existence.
- zxcmx 7y agoSure, we can agree it's exponential until it's not. And then we can start to think about whether it's going to be a logistic curve or oscillate and what factors might amplify or damp and our model is much more interesting. Like, the original statement is about systems that people study and model, and how the exponential condition can really only exist for brief periods relative to the lifetime of almost all systems of interest.
- ineedasername 7y agoOscillation and a sort of meta-stability is not uncommon, and something I personally find fascinating!