Exponential growth
Modern industrialized nations are heavily dependent on a steady supply of raw materials. Most
materials are being produced at a rate that is growing exponentially with time, at least approximately,
driven by increasing global population and standards of living. So we should look first at exponential
growth and its consequences. If the current rate of production of a material is P metric tons per year and
this increases by a fixed fraction r % every year, then
dP r
= P
dt 100
Integrating over time t gives
P=P 0 exp ¿
where Po is the production rate at time t =t0. This is shown in the Figure below.
Taking logs of this equation gives
( ) ( )
P P r (t−t 0)
log e =2.3 log 10 =¿ ¿
P0 P0 100
so a plot of log10(P) against time t, as in the lower part of the Figure is linear with a slope of r/230.
Aside - For current interest
Apparent exponential growth is observed in any system where something increases by a constant
percentage in a fixed time scale. Although this is applied to production in the above it has long been
applied to population growth (since the work of Malthus in 1798 [1]) and is the basis of many significant
factors in our lives, such as the R number for COVID-19. The ‘basic reproduction number’, R0 value for
COVID-19 is more directly determining economic and social policy than has ever the inflation rate,
interest rate or exchange rate. Like many mathematics/statistical parameters, R0 is relatively easy to
explain, more complicated to understand (even graphically), and very difficult to calculate or use for
modelling. Given its significance for all our lives, it is important to understand a little of its background.
R0 can be described simply as the average number of secondary infections produced when one infected
individual is introduced into a susceptible host population [1]. You will immediately recognise that we
are currently at a stage well beyond R0; that is, long after the disease ‘has been introduced’ so more
accurately the term is RE, the ‘effective reproduction number’. If one person becomes infected (patient
zero) and passes it onto two others, and they in turn each to two others, and so on, the R0 value is 2.
This is an example of exponential, ‘Malthusian’ growth (Eqn 1 below). We tend to view the problem in
terms of our human health but in Eqn 1, the data are viewed from the perspective viral growth, akin to
an animal population.
Rt
P ( t ) =P0 e (1)
where P(t) is the population at time t, P0 is the initial population, R is the rate of growth and t is the time.
In 1847, Verhulst noticed an obvious problem with the Malthusian model: exponential growth cannot go
on indefinitely. Animals will run out of food, space, etc, and even for viruses, once they have infected
everyone, they have reached a limit to their theoretical population. A different, logistic equation (Eqn 2)
is required [2]. In this logistic, S-shaped growth pattern the population increases at first exponentially,
but then the slope of curve (reflecting the R0 value) changes from > 1 to < 1 mid-way up the curve at
what is known as the ‘inflection point’ (Fig. 1).
K K −P0
P (t)= − Rt where A= (2)
1+ A e P0
with K being the maximum population achievable for the given conditions. Hence, in this sense the R0
value may be regarded as naturally changing in a population over time. For a virus, the plateau may not
represent the entire population infected but only the proportion susceptible. However, even this logistic
growth equation is not the whole story. The plateau population is never likely to be entirely static, but
will vary with prevailing conditions and May’s related ‘logistic map’ equation (Eqn3 ) better reflects this
[3].
Pn +1=R P n ( 1−Pn ) (3)
with symbols as in previous equations, with Pn+1 being the population at day n + 1, Pn the population at
day n. The equation is recursive.
As the value of R increases, the population varies increasingly cyclically or periodically around a mean
value at the plateau, with the notable finding that at some critical value of R, the size fluctuates
chaotically over time. It is interesting in this regard that the range of reported values for COVID-19 R0
are predicted to cause such periodic or even chaotic effects and this has implications for NHS capacity
planning. Figure 1 plots the three equations.
Figure 1 Three models of population (viral) growth: exponential (Eqn 1; red), logistic (Eqn 2, black) and
logistic map (Eqn 3, green). Different values have been used to separate the lines. Note that whereas in
exponential, R0 value is constant, it varies for the other two models depending on the time point it is
measured at.
Historical perspective
Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) was an English polymath – cleric, mathematician, economist and founding
Fellow of the (Royal) Statistical Society – who wrote an early treatise on population growth (An Essay on
the Principle of Population, 1798; Eqn 1). His ideas remain controversial. The notion that exponential
population growth outstrips food availability has been used to support population control (in the poor).
Pierre Francois Verhulst (1804–1849) was a Belgian mathematician (Eqn 2) with a passionate social
conscience. When visiting Rome, he was moved to submit a democratic constitution for the Papal State,
and was promptly banished from the city [2]. He died young.
1. May RM, Anderson B. Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992.
2. Cramer JS. The early origins of the logit model. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 2004; 35:
613–26.
3. May RM. Simple mathematical models with very complicated dynamics. Nature 1976; 261: 459–67
