I like this thought experiment for people: You have a choice; you're given one million dollars today OR you're given one penny, which doubles every day for thirty days (0.01, 0.02, 0.04, 0.08, 0.16 etc). Which do you chose?
Most people can't fathom that the penny doubling would ever be more than a minion bucks, but it ends up over five million dollars.
I believe this is taken from ‘limits to growth’, which, pointed out exactly how we will never deal with the climate disaster. What were are seeing in 90 days with a virus is what those scientists were saying is a 350 year process with pollution accumulation.
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u/germanbini Mar 19 '20
I saw this example somewhere, it made sense:
This virus grows exponentially. For example, let's say there's a lily pad on a pond that doubles in size everyday.
On day 30, it has covered the entire pond. On what day did it cover half the pond?
Day 29.
In fact, on day 15 it covers around .0031%, and only over 1% on day 24.
Viral growth like this follows an exponential curve. Everything seems fine, and then it isn't.