Exponential growth in Neo4j

With the current surges of the Covid-19 Pandemic globally, there is a huge amount of debate raging in our societies - everywhere. It’s almost as if the duality between left and right that has been dividing many political spectra in the past few years, is now also translating itself into a duality that is all about more freedom for the individual (and potentially - a higher spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus), versus more restrictions for the individual. It’s such a difficult debate - with no clear definitive outcome that I know of. There’s just too many uncertainties and variations in the pandemic - I personally don’t see how you can make generic statements about it very easily.

One thing I do know though, is that very smart and loveable people, in my own social and professional circle and beyond, seem to be confused by some of the data. Very often, they make seemingly rational arguments about the numbers that are seeing - but ignoring the fact that we are looking at an Exponential Growth problem. In this post, I want to talk about that a little bit, and illustrate it with an example from the Neo4j world.

What is Exponential Growth exactly?

Let’s take a look at the definition from good old Wikipedia:

Exponential growth is a specific way that a quantity may increase over time. It occurs when the instantaneous rate of change (that is, the derivative) of a quantity with respect to time is proportional to the quantity itself. Described as a function, a quantity undergoing exponential growth is an exponential function of time, that is, the variable representing time is the exponent (in contrast to other types of growth, such as quadratic growth).

The basic functions that are being entertained here are very simple in terms of the maths: