The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
(Prof. Al Bartlett)

As a scientist from the field of solid state research, I experience the spread of the coronavirus Covid-19 as a tragedy. Instead of just stunned how the decision-makers wait without action until the problem becomes difficult to control, I prefer to take the initiative: I will show with simple means why we often misjudge natural growth problems and what we can do. After all, I have been concerned with the problem of contamination since I started researching open radioactivity. The parallels are…