gone parabolic (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Joel S. Berson]

At 12/2/2010 05:26 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>@Joel--the short answer is no. It is hyperbola that approaches a
>straight line as you move away from center, not parabola. Quadratic
>growth ALWAYS exceeds linear growth /eventually/, no matter what the
>linear growth rate is. Exponential growth, on the other hand, ALWAYS
>exceeds polynomial growth /eventually/, no matter what the degree of the
>polynomial is. To put is simply, a parabolic curve is one of /constant
>acceleration/, so it would be inaccurate to describe it as you did.

I had forgotten about the hyperbola.  Although both the parabola and
hyperbola extend to infinity.

But I now wonder if there's another source of the "gone parabolic" --
the writer first conflated "hyperbole/hyperbolic" (thinking of the
growth as "excessive") with "hyperbola/hyperbolic", and then somehow
chose a different conic section, the parabola?

Joel

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