[ExI] word usage-picky picky

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 4:10 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> *Exponents can be negative.  *
>

Yes, and in that case the rate of change would be moving faster and faster
toward zero at an exponential rate.

*> I read where something is a fraction of something else.  Fractions can
> be 15/7 or 767/5.  Hardly communicating something small.  I suggest 'small
> fraction'. More clarity in language, please.*
>

That would not bring more clarity because we're talking about rates of
change and not constants. A "small fractional" change would be a linear
change such as Y= nX where n is a constant such as 2/3. A geometric change
would be Y= X^n. And an exponential change would be Y=n^X. These are 3
different types of changes with fundamentally different properties.
Exponential change grows (positively or negatively depending on specifics)
vastly faster than the other two and should not be confused.

John K Clark
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