Exponential growth is a data pattern that goes up quickly over the time interval. In terms of data, you normally would plot, by using a log scale graphing form, multifold increases.
In many fields of research, the concept of exponential growth, and its character of rapid growth, is being used. The fields include, finance, biology, mathematics, economics, business, management, etc.
Examples of Exponential Growth
1. Spread of Virus.
Viral infections generally exhibit exponential growth, illustrated well by the spread of an actual viral disease.
A viral disease gets passed along by the person carrying the virus to people and items he/she/they contact, leading to an increase in infected individuals.
The number of people infected progresses steadily at a fast rate, and it is clearly of exponential nature.
2. Finance.
A good example of exponential growth can be observed in finance. For example, a saving account used with an annual compound interest gives exponential returns to the holder of the account.
This gives the owner a sizeable amount of capital with a small investment. Likewise, economic growth is another example of exponential growth in real life.
3. Nuclear Chain Reactions.
Many chemical reactions occur via exponential growth. When the nucleus of a uranium atom is bombarded by external neutrons, that nucleus gets split into to equal parts.
As you can imagine, this is an exothermic reaction that liberates an extreme amount of thermal energy into the surrounding environment. Then the two parts of the parent nucleus continue to split and the reaction simply continues.
This is a chain of nuclear fission reactions repeated until the parent uranium element is completely consumed. The energy liberated by nuclear reactions like this can be extremely high, nearly 200 mega electron volts.
4. Pyramid Schemes.
Pyramid marketing schemes are also referred to as Ponzi schemes. They consist of a business model that includes recruiting members who are paid according to the number of members that they subsequently enroll. Every enrolled member is likely to recruit new members under their watch.
This multiplies the number of members in the organization at each level. Thus, multi-level marketing schemes are an example of exponential growth in practice.
5. Bacterial Growth.
The best example of exponential growth in real life is bacteria. Bacteria are microscopic, single-celled organisms which are too small to be seen by the naked eye.
They are found on almost any living or non-living thing in the earth, and can often grow under extreme temperatures and pressures. Bacteria grow by a process called binary fission, where the parent cell attaches or adheres to a surface, and divides into two daughter cells.
Each daughter cell, attaches to the surface and divides into two daughter cells. This process continues itself and has exponential growth, doubling in size (or cells) every time. So after one time it has 2 cells, after two it has 4 cells, after three cell divisions it has 8 cells, 16, 32, 64, and so on.
6. Circulation of Data on the Internet.
The internet creates a great deal of space for the dissemination of information. The dissemination of information on the internet is usually exponential.
As the information is passed on from one person to another, the recipient passes it on to several other users, and the process continues from there.
Thus, it is nearly impossible to remove, or extract information from the internet.
7. Moore’s Law.
Moore’s law is named after Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel. Moore’s law is based on the ideology and observation of Gordon E. Moore, that the transistor count on a microchip that are used in microprocessors double every year.
Because of this, if you collect yearly data for the amount of transistors on microchip’s, the data will form an exponential curve and represent the exponential growth of microprocessors.
8. Human Population.
There is no better illustration of exponential growth than that of human life. A Survey carried out in 2025 revealed that the world population was a magnitude of 8,231,613,070. What a growth that was, and at exponential growth rates.
9. Food Spoilage.
Food spoils mostly due to microorganisms like fungi, bacteria, yeast, etc. Microbial spoilage is affected by temperature, moisture, and other factors that help grow this microorganisms responsible for deterioration of food.
The growth or multiplication of these microorganisms is exponential. Even if they spoil food rapidly, spoilage can be slowed by methods including salting, smoking, etc.
10. Patient Count during a Pandemic.
A pandemic is an epidemic that occurs in at least two continents and the disease causes illness on a widespread basis.
If you look at the number of patients infected by a disease in a pandemic, you notice that each day, the number of new patients is added to the number of patients that are already infected.
Every day you can do this showing exponential growth ultimately leading to an increase in the total number of patients who are infected with the disease.
11. Weed Growth.
Weed growth is another case of exponential growth in real life. Weeds are plants that are undesirable that grow to take up all of the nutrients of the plants that are desirable. They like to grow in a hurry and will grow in the exponential fashion.
If weed growth is not artificially controlled, weeds can take over a whole area in a very short amount of time. Weeding processes are used to eliminate weeds in a particular area.
12. Cancerous Cells.
If a human healthy cell meets an infected or cancerous cell, the infection or cancer tends to spread, turning the healthy body cells to cancerous cells.
The process of passing the infection to the adjacent cells indicates an exponential growth process that goes on and on, until some artificial means such as laser surgery, radiotherapy, etc., are utilized to modify or damage chain of the cancerous cells.
13. Fire.
Fire is one of the most destructive forces of nature. Fire spreads rapidly due to the exponential relationship between fire and combustible objects. Once a combustible object is ignited with fire, it tends to ignite other combustible objects within the vicinity.
The newly ignited objects transfer the energy to the neighboring objects and cause those objects to ignite. Because the trees are essentially the same, the number of objects burning doubles with every instant of time, and this is a demonstration of exponential growth in real life.
14. Sales of a Popular Product.
Markets are one of the best examples of exponential growth in the real world.
If you look at a graph of the sales of a popular product over time, you will notice that initially, the curve is flat, then it slopes gently up, and after a period of time, it ‘takes off.’ This is the picture of an exponential curve.
15. Rice on the Chess Board.
The Rice on the Chessboard is an old story involving exponential growth. It is based on a sage who wishes to be paid his winning price in rice grains.
The rice grain can be set up so that each block of the chessboard has the number rice grains on it such that the first block has one rice grain, the second block has two rice grains, the third block has four rice grains.
So each block of the chessboard has double the number of rice grains as the previous block. Therefore, the rice grains grow exponentially; by the last block of the chess, there are 9 * 1018 rice grains.
16. Water Lily.
Lily pads placed in a pond or lake will initiate the reproduction process as soon as the necessary conditions are met.
If a lily pad reproduces one offspring each day, the number of lily pads will double each day (the number of lilies on the first day is one lily; on the second day there will be two in the water body).
On the third day, there will be four, on the fourth day, it will be sixteen, and so on. After one week, there is a maximum of 128 in the water body. As you can see, the number of lily pads is increasing exponentially!
17. Folding a Paper.
If you take a piece of paper that is 0.001 cm thick and fold it in half, after the first fold the paper thickness will be 0.002 cm.
When you fold it again the thickness is 0.004 cm. After ten folds the thickness of the paper is 1.024 cm. After 25 folds the thickness of the paper would be 33,554 cm, or 1,100 ft.
Exponential growth in thickness can be illustrated again very easily. However, a fine piece of paper cannot be folded more than twelve times; this you can verify yourself.