Exponential Growth
Etymology
From “exponent,” Latin “exponere” (to set forth), ex- (out) plus ponere (to place); the notion of a number placed above to signal repeated multiplication was named by 16th-century mathematicians such as Michael Stifel. “Exponential” came to describe growth governed by such a power.
noun phrase · /ek-spoh-NEN-shuhl GROHTH/
Growth in which a quantity increases by a fixed percentage each period, so the increases themselves keep getting bigger.
What it names
The pattern human intuition most reliably fails at — the reason pandemics, viral posts, and compound debt seem to erupt “out of nowhere.”
Example
A pond lily that doubles daily and covers the pond on day 30 was still only half-covered on day 29 — that is exponential growth hiding until the end.
Related idea
It is often misused for anything fast; true exponential growth differs from linear growth by adding a constant percentage, not a constant amount, so the two curves diverge without limit.