[Phys-L] tutorial on exponential mixtures

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

Hi Folks --

Nowadays I find myself spending a lot of time explaining
about exponentials and sums of exponentials.  I know some
other folks on this list are in the same boat.

I reckon these concepts will surprise nobody here, but
perhaps the diagrams and the verbiage will come in handy.

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A lot of people find exponentials to be counterintuitive. For example, if you add an exponential with one rate to an exponential with the opposite rate, they do NOT average out.  Really not.

You can practice by looking at the red curve in this diagram.  See if you can predict what happens next:
  https://www.av8n.com/pandemic/img48/two-exp.png

Additional discussion can be found in the next message.