Exponential Growth

CORE DEFINITION

In exponential growth the increment per period is proportional to the current population, so the total doubles in a fixed time regardless of scale. Thomas Malthus used the pattern in 1798 to argue that population grows geometrically while food supply grows only arithmetically. Because intuition extrapolates linearly, the late stages of an exponential process are routinely underestimated: a culture that is half full one minute before it is full looks harmless. Resource limits eventually cut the growth rate, turning the curve from exponential into sigmoid. The warning signal is the doubling time against the resource clock, not the current increment.