Function
Curve
Intuitively, a curve may be thought of as the trace left by a moving point
Non-linearality
Many people mistake outcomes as being linear. That is, their understanding of a phenomenon is that if a certain quality exists that causes things to be good, then more of that quality will lead to more goodness. This would be the case if the function was linear, but often that is not the case.
- ex. Imagine we were to plot Libertarianism on one end of a spectrum and Socialism on the other. People might look at this and plot the U.S. somewhere around 80% toward Libertarianism. The logic then follows that if the U.S. was even more Libertarian, then it would be even better. What this line of thinking fails to realize however, is that this is not a linear spectrum. Put another way, some socialism is good, and some libertarianism is good, but too much of either is likely bad. Therefore, the function that describes this relationship is not linear at all— it's a parabola.
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