The planet's average temperature hit 17.23 degrees Celsius on Thursday, surpassing the 17.18C record set on Tuesday and equalled on Wednesday.

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[–] 17 points 3 years ago (1 child)

There's also a good example of exponential change described using a doubling drop of water in The Power of Compounding

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    Meh.

    It's doubling each step.

    If course it's at 1/(2^n) of the final volume at n steps before the final step.

    • At half of its final volume one step before the end
    • a quarter of its final volume two steps before the end
    • an eighth of its final volume three steps before the end
    • a sixteenth of it's final volume four steps before the end
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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago

    Mathematically it's obvious and straightforward but the point is that it's not intuitive from a typical person's subjective perspective. It's easy to underestimate or dismiss the rate of change until a situation becomes unmanageable.

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