That could well describe the aging process. The process of erosion seems at first to be incremental, but later proves to be exponential.
More optimistically, this is also how progress happens. Technological change tends to be exponential.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change
In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is a perceived increase in the rate of technological change throughout history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future and it may or may not be accompanied by equally profound social and cultural change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change#Kurzweil.27s_The_Law_of_Accelerating_Returns
In his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines Kurzweil proposed "The Law of Accelerating Returns", according to which the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including but not limited to the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially.[7] He gave further focus to this issue in a 2001 essay entitled "The Law of Accelerating Returns".[8] In it, Kurzweil, after Moravec, argued for extending Moore's Law to describe exponential growth of diverse forms of technological progress. Whenever a technology approaches some kind of a barrier, according to Kurzweil, a new technology will be invented to allow us to cross that barrier. He cites numerous past examples of this to substantiate his assertions. He predicts that such paradigm shifts have and will continue to become increasingly common, leading to "technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history." He believes the Law of Accelerating Returns implies that a technological singularity will occur before the end of the 21st century, around 2045. The essay begins:
An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense 'intuitive linear' view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The 'returns,' such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to the Singularity—technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.
According to Kurzweil, since the beginning of evolution, more complex life forms have been evolving exponentially faster, with shorter and shorter intervals between the emergence of radically new life forms, such as human beings, who have the capacity to engineer (intentionally to design with efficiency) a new trait which replaces relatively blind evolutionary mechanisms of selection for efficiency. By extension, the rate of technical progress amongst humans has also been exponentially increasing, as we discover more effective ways to do things, we also discover more effective ways to learn, i.e. language, numbers, written language, philosophy, scientific method, instruments of observation, tallying devices, mechanical calculators, computers, each of these major advances in our ability to account for information occur increasingly close together. Already within the past sixty years, life in the industrialized world has changed almost beyond recognition except for living memories from the first half of the 20th century. This pattern will culminate in unimaginable technological progress in the 21st century, leading to a singularity. Kurzweil elaborates on his views in his books The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity Is Near.
For example, the increase of the percentage of electric vehicles purchased tends to double over similar time periods. For example, it might take ten years for the number of EVs purchased by the general public to increase from 1% to 2%. So it would also take ten years for the number of EVs to expand from 2% to 4%, and from 4% to 8%. It would also take ten years, by that measure, for the number of EVs to increase from 25% to 50%, and from 50% to 100%.
This would explain the new optimism of Al Gore.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/science/the-new-optimism-of-al-gore.html?_r=0
Investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar is skyrocketing as their costs plummet. ... Experts predicted in 2000 that wind generated power worldwide would reach 30 gigawatts; by 2010, it was 200 gigawatts, and by last year it reached nearly 370, or more than 12 times higher. Installations of solar power would add one new gigawatt per year by 2010, predictions in 2002 stated. It turned out to be 17 times that by 2010 and 48 times that amount last year.
In 1980, one shows, consultants for AT&T projected that 900,000 cellphones might be sold by 2000. In fact, there were 109 million by then.Same is true with solar power.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/The-U.S.-Solar-Market-Now-One-Million-Installations-Strong
Sometime around the end of February, the millionth solar installation came on-line in the United States -- a milestone that says as much about where the solar industry is going as it does about how far the industry has come.
“It took us 40 years to get to 1 million installations, and it will take us only two years to get to 2 million,” said Dan Whitten, vice president of communications at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). “This is a time to mark when the solar industry started to accelerate at warp speed.”
At the end of 2015, the U.S. solar market hit a total capacity of 27 gigawatts. That represents just 1 percent of the current U.S. electricity mix, but it could triple to 3 percent by 2020. This year alone, the U.S. solar market is projected to grow 119 percent, which represents an additional 16 gigawatts of new installed capacity and more than double the record-breaking 7.3 gigawatts added in 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread. Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies, popularized the theory in his book Diffusion of Innovations; the book was first published in 1962, and is now in its fifth edition (2003).[1] Rogers argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated over time among the participants in a social system. The origins of the diffusion of innovations theory are varied and span multiple disciplines.
