Exponential - II

A Mathematical Fire-Alarm Fire

Exponential - II A Mathematical Fire-Alarm Fire

Because scientists work with exponential mathematics in their fields of research and in their college curricula, they are routinely cognizant of the late-phase characteristics phase that occur in exponential sequences. In contrast, however, the rest of us generally have little occasion to work with exponential progressions. As a result, many of earth's top scientists warn of a potentially catastrophic collision (their words) of humanity with earth's natural environenviron ment while the rest of us find it hard to believe that it is t really so. If one is at work and hears a fire-alarm, the sound warns alarm, that potential danger exists and that precautionary meamea sures are needed immediately. It signals that an interruption in ordinary conditions exists and attention to a popo tential crisis is urgently required. Anyone who ignores such an alarm does so at one's own peril. In a burning n building, of course, occupants can all hear a fire al alarm as it sounds, so long as their hearing is normal and unimn paired. In today's world, a J-curve is the mathematical equivalent of a curve fire-alarm going off in a burning building. The fact that expoalarm nential sequences, however, can so easily deceive us, combined with their power and counterintuitive behavior, makes them exceedingly dangerous. Any numbers that mimic the fission events in a nuclear detonation should warrant our most serious attenatten tion. When graphed, exponential sequences produce a characteristic J-curve approximating the illustration depicted above. When we curve illus encounter a J-curve, we should react to the data that produced it curve, just as we would react to a fire alarm in a building. Like an explosion, something powerful out of the ordinary, and highly danpowerful, gerous is underway, demanding that both emergency attention and precautions be exercised without de autions delay. In our previous article ( Exponential 1) we saw that exponential mathematics can change one cent into $21,000,000 in thirty-one days. If we graph the daily numbers in that progression, they proone duce a J-curve. If we graph the fission events that took place in the first test of a nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico in 1945 they too produce a J-curve. And if we graph earth's hu1945, curve. hu man population over the millennia between 8,000 B.C. and the present day, the diagram that re, sults, like the one shown above, is a J-curve. , The point should be unsettling, for there it is, set forth dramatically, mathematically, and inin escapably: A graph of our own demographics over a span of ten millennia mimics the graph of a nnia nuclear detonation. Thus, even though terms such as a population explosion or a population . bomb" seem frightening, they are actually a precise and mathematically accurate description of ing,

human demographics over a period of ten thousand years. The numbers that depict our demo phics sand demographics follow a pattern whose graph mimics a graph of the fission events that destroyed Hiroshima. Our Moment in History Of course, there are differences. During its detonation, the Hiroshima weapon exploded over roshima a matter of seconds and flattened a city, while most of our own detonation has occur occurred over the past two centuries and we are flattening the biota and natural systems of our planet. Addressing climate change, climatologist Ste Stephen Schneider once noted that "it is precisely because the responsible scientific community cannot rule out ...catastrophic outcomes at a high level of con confidence that climate mitigation policies are seriseri ously proposed." He then goes on to assess the status of climate change this way: "We could be atus lucky and see a mild effect or unlucky and get catastrophic outcomes" (Schneider, 2002). Faculty at Louisiana State University and others repeatedly warned government officials of the vulnerabilities that the city of New Orleans faced if vulnera a powerful hurricane should strike the city. When city and government officials, however, countricane ials, count ed on luck and inaction to save the city, everyone involved ended up with a disastrous outcome as officialdom failed to prepare for reality. At Hiroshima, of course, the utter disaster was relatively localized and took place in a matter of moments. On the other hand, most of our own detonation has occurred primarily over the past 180 years instead of a few minutes and instead of devastating a city and its residents, we are obli obliterating the natural systems and biota of our planet in a way that make our own explosion is global in its impacts impacts. We can use the graph shown right to reflect upon the early stages of the Hiro Hiroshima detonation. Notice the region where the graph is still flat and rising slowly from the x-axis x like an airplane rising from a runway. The city of Hiroshima was not damaged by the earliest runway e dam stages of the detonation, for in this region of the graph the growing numbers are still so small that ng they seem to be harmless or unimportant. The point to be made is this: The early phases of the unimportant Hiroshima detonation did no damage to the city, its people, or its environment. The disaster did not occur until shortly afterwards as the number of fission events skyrocketed upward in the closfterwards ing phases of the progression.

If we examine a graph of humankinds population growth over the past ten millennia to 2011, we see that for most of that history, our graph rose slowly from the x-axis. But x our most destructive impacts are occurring today, as our today numbers rocket upward along the y-axis our graph. axis Our. moment in history is characterized by numbers that are rocketing upward in the closing phases of an exponential progression, and we are all participants in the cal, cal amitous unfolding of events.
On the graph shown left, billions numbers 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 (plus 800 million more after that) are based on the most recent U.N. high e high-fertility world population projections to 2100.

Linear versus Exponential inear

Linear Progression

Our next two graphs (shown left and below) summarize several important differences be between linear and exponential patterns.
This graph shown left results from a linear progression that grows by repeated additions of like amounts. One example amounts of such a sequence might be 7....14....21....28....35.... 7....14....21....28....35....42.... etc. Notice that in this case, we added seven each time. In such sequences, we can count on a steady and predictable propro gression in which tomorrow's conditions will be a continuacontinu tion of conditions that characterize yesterday and today.

Linear

Graphs nuclear

of

Graphs of nuclear detonations (and human population growth from 8,000 B.C. to present) produce J-curves similar to the graph shown right. In such sequences, most of the growth occurs, and most of the damage is done, in the closing phases of the progression as the graph rockets upwards. One example of this sort of exponential progression might be 1...2...4...8...16...32...64...128 and 256, etc. in which we multi8...16...32...64...128 ply repeatedly (in this case, by two).

In our next article in this series, we will see that our intuitions (and much of our schooling) produce in us an inclination to interpret almost everything in our world using a linear mind-set based on routine mathematics like the linear set depicted above. e above This is a problem because if we mtry tto use linear reasoning to understand and deal with problems that are behaving exponentially, errors of catastrophic magnitude are virtually inevitable.

Exponential

The perils inherent in exponential mathematics, however, are only apparent if our schooling ensures a thorough understanding of the power and the deceptive nature of such progressions. If our teachers, textbooks, and curricula omit J-curves (and the behavior of the exponential progressions that produce them) then we cannot hear the alarm they send and their dangers are invisible. Thousands of us will achieve success in life even if we are not experts at geometry and even if we never hear of a fractal, a tessellation, a tangent, Andrew Jackson, or the value of pi. On the other hand, if we do not understand the unique power and deceptive nature of J-curves and exponential mathematics, then we imperil ourselves, our societies, and the survival of earth's biota and funciioning systems. Linear progressions are straight-forward and obvious and present themselves in a completely predictable way so that we can count on relatively steady increments of change from one day to the next. Exponential progressions, on the other hand, are extremely powerful and deceptive. And their numbers, so seemingly small and unimportant in the early phases of a progression multiply repeatedly in a catastrophic self-intensifying pattern that is typical of, among other things, both explosions and nuclear detonations.

An S-Curve Some populations (but not all) exhibit a pattern of population growth called an S-CURVE, like the sigmoid-shaped curve shown here. Notice that the initial stages of an S-curve begin with an essentially exponential pattern of accelerating growth during which births exceed deaths.

time

The arrow in the diagram, however, denotes a critical inflection point which marks the beginning of a deceleration phase, in which births still exceed deaths, but at an increasingly slower rate. This increasing deceleration in the rate of growth results from increasing environmental resistance and density-dependent feedbacks as limiting factors begin to affect the crowded population more and more. Finally, notice that an idealized S-curve eventually flattens out, stabilizes and thereafter oscillates gently around an equilibrium in which births and deaths are essentially equal. . The density-dependent feedbacks that cause growth to slow as crowding increases include negative factors that tend to become worse as population densities increase. Thus, intensely crowded populations face greater and more pronounced adversities such as: Accumulating wastes, malnutrition, limited resources, increased aggression, predation, competition, environmental destruction, and exposure to epidemic disease. As crowding becomes more severe, such "feedbacks" commonly intensify, thereby causing rates of population growth to slow down more and more until births and deaths finally begin to offset each other and the size of the population gradually flattens out and becomes relatively stable for extended periods. A retired physicist once told me, incorrectly, that humans do not follow a J-shaped curve. As a career Ph.D., he was both highly intelligent and mathematically adept. He had also read enough biology to know that many animals with long lives and relatively small numbers of young (known as "k-strategists") commonly exhibit the stabilizing pattern of population growth epitomized by an S-curve.

Our own data, however, between 8000 B.C. and the present, do not support his claim. As we have already seen, there is no S-curve in that data -- our actual numbers, should you wish to graph curve them yourself, generate the J J-curves shown below.

Graph above depicts human history to 2011, and then shows U.N. medium mediumfertility population projections of 10 billion by the end of this century. This larger graph also depicts human history to 2011, and then shows U.N. high high-fertility population projections to 15.8 billion by 2100.
Notice that BOTH of these graphs of human population growth are. J-CURVES and that in both cases, our case numbers are rocketing upward along the explosive y-axis. Also notice that essentially all of our growth has ward axis. taken place in the last two hundred years, and with the bulk of that growth having occurred since our oc population milestone of two billion in 1930. United Nations medium projections in May 2011 estimate that stone billion our numbers will have reached NINE billion by 2043 and high-fertility projections send us to 15.8 billion fertility by 2100. These graphs should be all the more sobering if one considers the effect that a J-curve once had J on Hiroshima, Japan.

In nature, some sets of populations do exhibit an S-curve, but many other populations, as we will ome popula see in the section that follows, climb rapidly, climb too far, and suddenly collapse as death rates surge.

Climb and Collapse Climb-and-collapse disasters exhibit exponential growth during their initial phases, until, howeving phases er, a population exceeds one or more critical environmental thresholds, tipping points, or limits. The exuberant growth then sud suddenly ends, followed by a quick and massive die ck die-off. The data set depicted in the graph below is after a quintessential climb-and-collapse population study docu e documented in a herd of reindeer on St. Paul Island, Alaska (after Scheffer, 1951). eer 1951)

Twenty-five reindeer were introduced to the 41-square-mile island in 1911. The island had no five 41 mile wolves, predators, or competitors for the reindeer, so that their numbers grew exponentially until their numbers peaked at more than 2000 individuals by 1938 (notice the J-curve that leads to their curve population peak). Following that peak, however, the ensuing precipitous die- and collapse that -off wiped out more than 99% of the herd resulted in only eight surviving reindeer by the close of the study. Another factor should also be quite disquieting (and instructive), for at the time of their peak pop ctor population, the combined bodies of all of the reindeer physically physically-occupied less than 2/1000ths of one percent of the total island area that appeared to remain theoretically available. In other words, not theoretically-available. only did a population of mammals undergo climb-and-collapse, but their 99% die climb die-off took place in seemingly vast open-space conditions in a surrounding environment that visually appeared to space nt be ALMOST ENTIRELY EMPTY .

In a follow-up to Scheffers classic study, D. R. Klein (1968) documented an even more precipiup tous climb-and-collapse outcome in a second reindeer study on St. Matthew Island, Alaska. collapse Klein's data is depicted in the graph below. Notice that in this study also, more than 99% of the below , reindeer died as the collapse occurred (And subsequent analysis has shown that this collapse occurred. And also occurred in an environment that was 99.998% empty.) As Klein noted in his paper (1968), the experiment resulted in the near ly complete annihilation of the mplete herd. In our graph of V.B. Scheffers results (previous page), we saw page) that the same thing happened. And since a graph of our own population curve is, if anything, even more extreme than the graph of either reinrein deer herd, perhaps we should familiarize ourselves with carrying capacities, limiting factors, overshoot, and delayed feedbacks in population dybacks namics.

1963 - 6000
Reindeer

1944
29 Reindeer

1964
42 Reindeer

time The Open-space Delusion space We have just seen two classical examples of populapopula tion climb-and-collapse calamities and 99% die-offs in die separate and independent studies of real-world mamreal malian populations. And subsequent mathematical analyses have shown that both of these collapses, incollapses dependently, began when the combined bodies of all members of each herd physically physically-occupied less than .2/1000ths of 1%. of seemingly vast open-spaces that open appeared to remain theoretically theoretically-available in an environment that visually appeared to remain almost entirely empty (illustration shown right depicts 2/1000ths of 1%) (Note that even an intelligent species might find it difficult to believe that danger is imminent when such enormous quantities of open-space appear to remain.) Remarkably, exactly the same 2/1000ths of 1% conditions also characterize deadly marine outbreaks known mari as dinoflagellate red-tides. During population explo. sions of dinoflagellates such as Karenia brevis, for example, all one million one-celled individuals in a one celled oneliter sample, combined, physically physically-occupy less than 2/1000ths of 1% of the one-liter sample in which they liter reside. Since the dinoflagellates induce environmental calamity by their release of wastes into their surround surroundings, we might, perhaps, find such information instrucinstruc tive since our own species exhibits a remarkably similsimil ar pattern of behavior.

(Unfortunately our own species does not confine itself to releasing only our cellular, metabolic, and biological wastes into our surroundings. Instead, we supplement our biological wastes, in a way that is utterly unprecedented in the history of life on earth, with a daily, ongoing, worldwide, , and ever-increasing avalanche of billions of tons societal and industrial wastes, so that we are emwastes barked upon a worldwide trajectory that is not only worse than that of an outbreak of red onl red-tide, but is multiple orders of magnitude worse, at that.) No other animals do this, and no other animals in the entire history of the earth have ever suppleear mented their biological wastes in the way that we do And our exceptionality in this respect is do. And not an incidental or minor footnote to the biology of our species but, along with our sheer physical eradication of ever-expanding portions of the only planetary life-support machinery so far expanding support known to exist anywhere in the uni universe, it is one of our most pronounced and all all-encompassing characteristics.
(What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet, 2010) ld

Thus, population explosions of mindless one-celled dinoflagellates induce calamity upon both themselves and the environment in which they live while both of live, the reindeer herds experienced 99% die-offs, while a die mathematical assessment of each example shows that in each case, the organisms making up the crisis pop, ulation physically-occupied less than .2/1000ths of 1% of the environments in which they lived in other live words, in environmental conditions that visually apap peared to be e.almost entirely empty. empty Not to worry? Because, after all, we are smarter than a herd of reindeer or a population of mindless oneone celled dinoflagellates, arent we? (1) Unless, of course, the subject of the exam is expo exponential mathematics, demographics, the difference between a million and a billion, biospherics, whole-syswhole tems ecology, the open-space delusion, and 2/1000ths space of 1% and (2) Unless we employ our technologies and ingenuity in ways that make us more efficient at exploiti exploiting, destroying, eradicating and damaging earths life-support ng machinery more completely, efficiently, and rapidly than those systems can repair, sustain, and perpetuate sus themselves - (in other words, faster, more efficiently, in and more completely than ever - think of chain saws, earth movers, and bulldozers clear-cutting a forest clear that was once logged by hand, for example or of satellite tracking, sonar, and fishing technologies that permit a fishing industry to catch fish faster than the fish themselves are at reproducing and maturing). e

Don't Worry - Be Happy Our own numbers from 8000 B.C. to 2050 A.D., when graphed, emphatically do not generate the comfortable S-curve that causes some to suppose that all is well at least not so far. And curve although there is some minor retreat from our percentage rates of three decades ago (largely resulting from stringent one-child policies in China and a general stabilization in the richer firstworld nations of western Europe), on a worldwide basis, we are still adding approximately .227,000. additional people to world population every day, almost seven million additional every month, and one billion additional every twelve to fifteen years. dditional An actual graph of our demographics over the past 10,000 years shows optimism to be most unn the warranted, for there is no S-curve there at least not in the data that brings us to the present day. curve day If we set aside our denials, our hopes and our wishes and simply graph the entirety of our demographic history and then examine the resulting graph as objectively as possible, what we actually resulting see shows that we are living in the closing stages of a J-curve that has been skyrocketing upward e along its y-axis over the course of the past 180 years
in a worldwide trajectory that is shockingly similar to a graph of the fission events inside the detonation that devastated Hiroshima

Perhaps you recall a popular reggae tune that cheerfully admonishes us "don't worry be happy." The subject of population growth, for some reason, almost never appears on television. And, over a span of three dec vision. decades, it has rarely, if ever, been brought up in a presi presidential news conference or in annu state of the union annual messages. Occasionally, of course, we may see a news newspaper article or a book that addresses population. Unfortunately, however, many of these seem intended to advance special economic interests and to omit the raw numbers and principles that we are addressing here. Numbers making up an exponential sequence are like a fire-alarm going off in a burning building but this alalarm arm can only be heard if some teacher, somewhere, teaches us the dangerous, powerful and deceptive bees havior of exponential number sequences. With each f new homework set, we are wiring our students brains so completely with 1930s arithmetic that we leave them ill-equipped to deal with, or even to perceive, the "realequipped world" mathematics of this 21st century. The Decades Just Ahead As young people today live their lives in this 21st century, there are fundamental mathematical skills that each of them needs to master. For those who will become scientists and engineers, quadratic equations and polynomial expansions will be propro fessional necessities. But what about the real world mathematics needed by each and every citizen? Civilization and our planet will all benefit if school districts, teachers, and publishers ensure zation that real-world demographic, numeric, and exponential topics are mastered in every math, sci world science, and social studies classroom.

At this precarious and decisive moment in history, we must ensure that the opening presentations the in the worlds classrooms, the opening pages of math, science, and social science textbooks, and srooms, opening the first questions on our standardized exams address the real-world mathematics and real-world world understandings that we need to navigate and mitigate the crises that lie ahead. After all, how ca can one lead wisely if one does not know: The powerful and deceptive behavior of J-curves and exponential mathematics? J curves mathematics The difference between a million and a billion? That we currently add more than 600,000 additional people to world population every ple three days? That we are adding one billion additional persons to our planet every twelve to fifteen years? And that current rates of population growth require us to complete more than 32,000 additional classrooms every four days repeatedly and endlessly throughout the halfhalf century just ahead?

A continuation of todays demographic tidal wave may constit constitute the greatest single risk that our species has ever undertaken. undertaken
Excerpted from What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet Used with permission.
Copyright 2009. Randolph Femmer. All rights reserved.

Sources and Cited References ources

pending

Anson, 2009. Anson, 1996. Campbell, et al., 1999 Cohen, 1995 Cohen and Tilman, 1996. Dobson, et al., 1997 Duggins, 1980; Estes and Palmisano, 1974 Mader, 1996 Mill, J.S., 1848. Pimm, 2001. Prescott, et al., 1999. Raven, et al., 1986 Wilson, 2002.