[Ads-l] Quote: Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Fri Jul 12 03:22:21 UTC 2019


Way back on October 9, 2018 I was sent a request to explore the
quotation in the subject line. I performed the primary research back
in 2018. Now, the QI website has an entry. See further below.

Unbeknownst to me, Barry Popik created an entry on January 23, 2019. I
added his name to the acknowledgement section although I did not see
his work until after the QI article was completed.

I think the QI entry is still worthwhile. It contains a slightly
earlier close match (if one assumes "Fall 1973" occurs before October
8, 1973). The QI entry also contains an interesting partial match from
Kenneth Boulding in 1953.

[Begin acknowledgement]
Great thanks to Roy Allen whose tweet inquiry in October 2018 led QI
to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Allen saw a
tweet by environmental activist George Monbiot who stated that an
attribution of the quotation to Attenborough was incorrect. Additional
thanks to the volunteer Wikipedia editors who located the November 29,
1973 citation, and Barry Popik who located the October 1973 citation.
[End acknowledgement]

Here is a link to Barry's article:
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/anyone_who_believes_in_exponential/

Feedback welcome
Garson

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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