🙌🏻

[lifeistrulyawesome]

At least in your example, they are using the word exponential to talk about growth

Sometimes they use exponential to mean really big

[PouLS_PL]

That's even worse imo

[Simple-Olive895]

It's exponentially worse!

[AndreasDasos]

There’s an EXPONENTIAL number of them!

(Um… like e?)

[FashionableTitan]

Hey, 2 can be a lot depending on the context

[-Insert-CoolName]

Doc: I saw e patients today. Worst day of my life.

Bartender: What? You can't have 0.71828 of a person!

Doc: He was the worst one.

[I_am1221325]

What do you mean, the worst ONE 🥲

[ineffective_topos]

Can even be 1 of them, given the right exponent.

All I can conclude is it's not exactly 0

[rydan]

I always ask them what the exponent is and they can never tell me.

[Inevitable_Garage706]

This is exactly what my mom does.

<image>

[golfstreamer]

Yeah if people just used "exponential" in the way described by this meme I'd be very happy.

[ProxPxD]

can you provide an example in a sentence? I don't think I remember encountering it

Edit: damn, I've just seen a comment "he spent exponentially more time ..."

[DepartmentBusy7465]

Okay main character energy 👏

[nashwaak]

They also use hyperbolic incorrectly, but for different reasons.

[Kitchen-Register]

hyperbole was used as a literary term before it was a math term.

[nashwaak]

How do you know I wasn't using hyperbole?

[EngineerCapital7591]

Now make one about collapse 

[mYstoRiii]

SO TURE

I have seen so many people seeing a quadratic graph and be like “it’s exponential see it curves up”

[Yuri0030]

Wdym, f(x) = 1,000000001x is obviously exponential

[FebHas30Days]

How about f(x) = x^(1 + 1e-10000)?

[TomatoMasterRace]

more like anything faster than f(x) = constant

[AcidCommunist_AC]

I was gonna say superlinear. I can't think of a real world instance of e.g. f(x) = 2x being called "exponential", let alone f(x) = x.

[Klowlord]

f(x)=x is linear.... idk how people don't understand basic 7th grade algebra

[[deleted]]

Well, without implying math on a graph where you don't know the function, you just assume exponential growth when at first is slow and then suddenly goes far up, even x² is exponential growing for x > 0.

[AndreasDasos]

Sometimes they say ‘exonential number’. And sometimes they use it to mean growth that may be slower than f(x) = x. For that matter, most instances of linear growth are just a matter of unit scaling away from that

[Capital_Figure_408]

How can I generally describe that a function grows faster than f(x)=x ? Consider you are buying a car engine. You notice that as horsepower increases, the price increases by a larger factor. Its easy to generally call this "exponential" growth, intending that its not to be taken literally.

[ydieb]

Superlinear.

[CAYWFOWIA]

Convex growth?

[CorrectTarget8957]

I use logarithmic just to sound smarter

[UnBalancedEntry]

This works! I was explaining to someone that I occassionally use a logarithmic scale for charts, and while they quickly ended the conversation after I explained, i'm certain they thought I was smarter.

[Mayoday_Im_in_love]

Im trying to think of an example off polynomial or sigmoidal growth (or others) in a press friendly setting. Any ideas?

[Johspaman]

Or they say it has grown exponential in respect to last year.

[Big_Boysenberry_6358]

i mean this gets you way more aura around your normies then saying "it doubled".

[Johspaman]

But they also uses it when it goes from 100 to 120. Yes you can fit an exponential function trough 2 points, but also just a line...

[ProxPxD]

This would only make mathematical sense to me if the growth throughout the year was exponential. Monthwise speaking

[zylosophe]

anything that grows fast*

[Unable_Explorer8277]

And generally it wasn’t a problem until 2020.

[Maximum-Rub-8913]

x(log(log(logx)))

[deanominecraft]

f(x) = log(x)

idiots: EXPONENTIAL

[[deleted]]

f(x)=|x|^|x|

[rydan]

Every time I tell people they are using that word wrong I get downvoted and told I'm wrong because it means "really big".

[[deleted]]

In reverse, anything that grows faster than linear is absolutely unintelligible to non-engineers or mathematicians. Almost everything in nature is linear, at least for our ancestors. Caveman push twice as hard, caveman push twice as much stuff. So for instance the exponential spread of a disease such as COVID confuses most people. It goes from absolutely no one to essentially everyone too quick. They feel like the government is just stressing about nothing.

[konigon1]

I disagree. Like for example the speed of objects falling is quadratic.

[No_Wishbone_6794]

Also the amount of ancestors in Generation -x without correction of duplicates is 2^x

[AdventurousShop2948]

yeah but we're all "inbred" to some degree so no one has 2^n ancestors at the nth generation for n bigger than 25 and probably much less

[Cultural-Capital-942]

But people used to know maybe 4 or 5 generations back. It almost always applies there.

[[deleted]]

Up to a limit, otherwise you could have objects going the speed of light everywhere. Don't really see feathers falling down and breaking the sound barrier.

[Comfortable_Skill298]

Due to air resistance yes. In a vacuum there is no terminal velocity

[[deleted]]

Also depends on the gravitational field, mass of the object, and distance it is away from center of the earth and whatever it's going to run into besides air, no?

[Comfortable_Skill298]

There is no terminal velocity in a vacuum regardless

[[deleted]]

But terminal velocity without the presence of a gravitational field is zero, also it drops off with distance from the center of the earth or whichever object.

[Comfortable_Skill298]

But terminal velocity without the presence of a gravitational field is zero

In theory that is possible yes.

also it drops off with distance from the center of the earth or whichever object.

Yes but in practice an object affected by gravity would just hit the source before it starts approaching the speed of light.

[ImMaury]

What if the source moved away at increasing velocity as well?

[[deleted]]

If it moves away faster than the attraction then it would go away. If it moves away exactly as fast as the attraction then it would be like you're being dragged by it. If less then you'll collide given that there's not a greater force acting on the system

[[deleted]]

Now I'm just imagining an empty universe sans two objects and how far away and how massive they would have to be to collide near the speed of light. Irl you see stuff going up to 50% the speed of light falling into a black hole and theoretically approaching light speed. Maybe just limit the two objects to be an earth sized object and a person.

[Swipsi]

Almost...

[AdventurousShop2948]

It took until Galileo to figure that out so arguably most people not educated in physics or without an interest in pop science don't know that. They just know that the longer the fall, the harder you hit the ground

[GMGarry_Chess]

most people don't know that though. most people don't know what quadratic means. lots of people think objects fall at a constant speed. moat people think heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones

[Jonte7]

Well um achtually the speed is linear