the.com/growth
the only thing nature shares with both forests and tumors
means The process or result of increasing in size, number, or development — whether of a living thing, an economy, or a lump you'd rather not have.
from From Old Norse 'gróðr,' tied to the verb 'grow' (Old English 'grōwan,' to flourish or sprout), itself from a Germanic root meaning to become green. The noun 'growth' is actually a latecomer — it surfaced in English only around the 1500s, modeled on older words like 'health' that turn a verb into a thing. So the word literally carries the green of springtime, even when we now use it for spreadsheets and biopsies.
- bamboo speed
- some species grow 35 inches per day
- endless cells
- HeLa cancer cells have divided since 1951
- economic faith
- infinite growth assumed on a finite planet
- tree memory
- rings record droughts centuries after they ended
- phantom inches
- you are tallest right after waking
moore's law — transistor count on chips doubles every 2 years since 1965
china gdp expansion — 9.5% annual average growth from 1978-2018, lifted 800 million from poverty
world population acceleration — grew from 1 billion in 1800 to 8 billion in 2023
amazon revenue trajectory — $3 billion in 2006 to $575 billion in 2023