[Eliezer]

Hi! This is the Yelling Math Fairy and THE WORD EXPONENTIAL DOES NOT MEAN MORE. IT IT IS A MATH WORD. IT MEANS e^kx. IT MEANS THE SOLUTION OF y' = ky. DOES EACH NEW ASSAY DOUBLE THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF WORK? NO IT DOES NOT. THE ADDED OVERHEAD FOR EACH ASSAY IS LINEAR GROWTH. NOT EXPONENTIAL GROWTH. I KNOW IT SEEMS LIKE A LOT TO YOU BUT THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT EXPONENTIAL. EXPONENTIAL IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR BIG AND EXPONENTIAL GROWTH IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR FAST. THANK YOU.

[emmett]

Keep fighting the good fight, Eliezer.

To add on: Some words have valuable and specific meanings! We don't have a good substitute word for "exponential" that means the same thing. Please make an effort not to do this!

[irollboozers]

Sorry, but in this case, it's actually N^x. Even running PCR and gel analysis requires steps where the time is dependent on the number of samples (e.g. pipetting, walking to the centrifuge, making multiple gels)

[emmett]

Generally speaking, running double the number of samples requires approximately double the amount of work, maybe a little less since you're doing it in bulk.

Are you really saying that going from 10 samples to 11 samples causes a doubling (or 1.2x-ing or tripling or whatever) of the time/work required? That's what exponential means.