Calculate Exponential Growth and Decrease

Calculates with a start value the growth in percent or as ratio and shows each single step. Decrease is negative growth, for this, a minus has to be selected. At a growth rate in percent or as ratio, for each step the former value will be multiplied with a factor. Then the result is rounded and the next step is made. A percent value is one hundred times the according ratio value. This growth is exponential, because with every step, more is added. When decreasing, the part that is subtracted decreases, so it becomes slowly less and asymptotically approaches zero.

Example: on a deposit of €12,500 , 3.5% interest are paid. After ten years, the deposit will be €17,632.47. After 100 years, you would have just under €390,000. However, it is rather unlikely that you will actually achieve the second result, even if you pass on the account. There are too many possible events that can occur which will prevent this.

Exponential growth goes against human intuition; we simply find it very difficult to imagine. Growth is slow at first, but then gets faster and faster while the brain is still calculating with the slow growth. An example of exponential growth in nature is cell division and the spread of pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. When a pandemic begins with single cases, it is often not believed that it can become global, even if the growth rate is already known.
Exponential growth is limited to a certain duration, because at some point it becomes so fast that there is no more room to grow. Exponential decrease also stops at some point, because even if you can mathematically divide a number as many times as you like without it becoming zero, in reality it still becomes zero.