Whether bacteria or humans are given unlimited resources, all life types in the world begin to increase exponentially. Bacteria can multiply in minutes, but it can take decades for humans. There is an inverse proportion between organism size and reproductive rate. It will reach light speed, even if the growth is not stopped by resources, it will be stopped by the laws of physics at some point.
y=a*r^t (a =initial value,r = growth “rate” ve t=time)
To understand how exponential growth can get out of control, we can show you an example: You started to save money with a penny and if you double the money you have every day, you become a multi-millionaire within a month.
What is more dangerous is that an exponentially growing community is also consuming resources at an exponential rate. If you have 20 days of resources and you notice that the situation is getting worse on the 16th day, you will not have time to take the necessary preventions.
Exponential growth ends and reach the Sigmoid curve in our world. The behavior of the exponential growth and the Sigmoid curve is the same at the beginning. The growth of a bacterial population that converts sugar to alcohol will increase exponentially depending on the alcohol density in the environment, and after a point growth will be limited.
Most epidemics begin to infect people exponentially if they are not treated, our aim is to reduce the growth coefficient (r) to below 1. In Wuhan city, the growth rate of Corona virus has decreased to 3.9 at the beginning and to 0.32 today.Singapore, Taiwan and Japan are examples of some countries that have been successful in this regard.
Nuclear Weapons
When we look at the working principles of nuclear weapons, we see that they benefit from uncontrolled growth. If you want to make atomic bombs, you need enriched Uranium-235 and a neutron source (in theory).So how it works, the slow neutron is captured by the already unstable Uranium-235 nucleus, the nucleus has enough energy, it divides into smaller elements, 2 or 3 neutrons emit other nuclei in these neutrons, and an uncontrolled split occurs with the reaction that starts with 1 neutron nano seconds It contains millions of neutrons in the environment.
As each nucleus divides, up to 200 MeV (10⁶ eV) energy is released, the energy released in chemical combustion is as much as 1 eV (electronvolts).
As we have seen in biology and physics, if exponential growth is not brought under control, undesirable results may occur, but if you can control it, you will reach the Nuclear Power Plant and solve the energy problem of humanity.
Sources:
1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission
2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth
3- https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/how-populations-grow-the-exponential-and-logistic-13240157/
