The other day in class there was a presentation about asymptotes, logistic curves and some stuff in there about population. Is an asymptote just a boundary for a function that never actually touches the actual points of the function being graphed? Also, a logistic curve... is that an "S" curve? Because with the example about population it can be graphed with an S curve. If you had some bears and the point of diminishing returns was there and that was when the bears were making other bears then after that bears started getting shot but then it reaches the high point or the "carrying capacity" and then the population of bears levels out? Is that right?
Bears started passing away* they do not necessarily have to be getting hunted by humans...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification. That is what I thought. As far as asymptotes anyways. Logistic curves are used to show growth and leveling off, they usually appear like an s, but I don't know how much they can deviate from that. Heres a big math word.(sigmoidal) thats the big word for what a logistic curve is.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the language of origin for that word
ReplyDeleteI believe it is Greek Matt.
ReplyDeleteAnother question off the idea of the "point of diminishing returns". Do asymptotes transcend into the natural world. In biology I know we learned that carrying capacity's mark how much population a species can have before overcrowding and the high demand of resources causes their population to drop. So could that be the limit? The only problem I see with that is in math the asymptote is just that, asymptotic and never fully attained, so how can a "in-passable" boundary exist in nature?
ReplyDeleteA great question....I will direct some other students to read this before I attempt my answer, though please note that any answer I do provide must be finite.
ReplyDeleteA believe I found a cavet to my last comment and I was not even hunting for it....
ReplyDelete