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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 function of time ...
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 ...
In physics and engineering, the time constant, usually denoted by the Greek letter τ (tau), is the parameter characterizing the response to a step input of a first-order, linear time-invariant (LTI) system. [1] [note 1] The time constant is the main characteristic unit of a first-order LTI system. In the time domain, the usual choice to ...
In particle physics, particle decay is the spontaneous process of one unstable subatomic particle transforming into multiple other particles. The particles created in this process (the final state) must each be less massive than the original, although the total mass of the system must be conserved. A particle is unstable if there is at least ...
To the right is the long tail, and to the left are the few that dominate (also known as the 80–20 rule ). In statistics, a power law is a functional relationship between two quantities, where a relative change in one quantity results in a relative change in the other quantity proportional to a power of the change, independent of the initial ...
The term γy represents the loss rate of the predators due to either natural death or emigration; it leads to an exponential decay in the absence of prey. Hence the equation expresses that the rate of change of the predator's population depends upon the rate at which it consumes prey, minus its intrinsic death rate.
The simplest non-trivial examples are the exponential growth model/decay (one unstable/stable equilibrium) and the logistic growth model (two equilibria, one stable, one unstable). The phase space of a two-dimensional system is called a phase plane , which occurs in classical mechanics for a single particle moving in one dimension, and where ...