I recently learned the word superlinear (for describing a math function that increases faster than a linear function could increase) and I’m so glad that I know it now because before I would be like:

“it increases exponentially. well okay like, I know ‘exponentially’ has a really specific definition in math and I’m not sure if this is specifically exponential but, the rate at which it’s increasing is itself increasing. does that make sense?”

every single time lol

@kasdeya nerd words to say "look at it grow!! wow!!!" /j

@PersonalMischief I need there to be a math paper written in this style, like

“okay so I made this cool function and look at it go! that’s what happens when you start at 1. wanna see what happens when you start at 10? yeah it does the same thing it’s like boioioioing! it goes all over the place and then it settles over there!! it really likes that spot of the graph. I think it’s strange how it’s attracted there so I call it a strange attractor! wanna see another one?”

@kasdeya for the specific case where the rate of increasing is itself increasing (and the rate of increase of that rate is linear) then "polynomic" might also be a relevant descriptor

(because this behavior is described as a second-order polynomial, or an equation of the form AX^2 + BX + C for any arbitrary A, B, and C, which will exhibit the above described linear rate increase properties when A is positive)

@tempest oohh that is good to know! thank you 💙 I didn’t even know that “polynomic” was a word

@kasdeya sub-exponential feels like it might be better but oh well