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Exponential growth. Exponential growth is a process that increases quantity over time at an ever-increasing rate. It occurs when the instantaneous rate of change (that is, the derivative) of a quantity with respect to time is proportional to the quantity itself. Described as a function, a quantity undergoing exponential growth is an exponential ...
Exponential decay. A quantity undergoing exponential decay. Larger decay constants make the quantity vanish much more rapidly. This plot shows decay for decay constant ( λ) of 25, 5, 1, 1/5, and 1/25 for x from 0 to 5. A quantity is subject to exponential decay if it decreases at a rate proportional to its current value.
Half-life (symbol t½) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable atoms survive. The term is also used more generally to characterize any type of exponential (or, rarely ...
The stretched exponential function. is obtained by inserting a fractional power law into the exponential function . In most applications, it is meaningful only for arguments t between 0 and +∞. With β = 1, the usual exponential function is recovered. With a stretching exponent β between 0 and 1, the graph of log f versus t is ...
Biological exponential growth. Biological exponential growth is the unrestricted growth of a population of organisms, occurring when resources in its habitat are unlimited. Most commonly apparent in species that reproduce quickly and asexually, like bacteria, exponential growth is intuitive from the fact that each organism can divide and ...
If the constant of proportionality is negative, then the quantity decreases over time, and is said to be undergoing exponential decay instead. The law of exponential growth can be written in different but mathematically equivalent forms, by using a different base, for which the number e is a common and convenient choice:
e. -folding. In science, e-folding is the time interval in which an exponentially growing quantity increases by a factor of e; [1] it is the base- e analog of doubling time. This term is often used in many areas of science, such as in atmospheric chemistry, medicine and theoretical physics, especially when cosmic inflation is investigated.
The natural logarithm of a number is its logarithm to the base of the mathematical constant e, which is an irrational and transcendental number approximately equal to 2.718 281 828 459. [1] The natural logarithm of x is generally written as ln x, loge x, or sometimes, if the base e is implicit, simply log x.