By doing a combination of both, we can move the graph anywhere in the plane. Think about it first. This is called exponential growth , and you can see its rapid rise just for three days in the graph. Some more realistic examples are compound interest, bacteria or population growth, and spread of disease or rumors in a large group. The amount A is a linear function of t .
Compound interest is more comp-licated.
The difference is that you make interest on the interest. Let's make a table of how your final balance after 5 years depends on n, the number of compounding periods per year. That's it for now.