The word ‘exponential’ is used not just in physics but also in everyday life. People sometimes say something increases exponentially when they mean that it increases very quickly, but exponential growth has a precise meaning. So what do we mean by exponential growth and decay, and what is the mathematics behind these ideas?
Many of the processes you study in physics are linear. For example, if a parachutist is falling towards the Earth at a constant speed of 8ms−1 (some time after their parachute has opened), then in each second the parachutist will fall 8 metres, as shown in Table 1.
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