Editing Exponential decay (section)

=== Computer science ===
{{see also|Exponential backoff}}
* The core '''[[Routing|routing protocol]]''' on the [[Internet]], [[BGP]], has to maintain a [[routing table]] in order to remember the paths a [[Packet (information technology)|packet]] can be deviated to. When one of these paths repeatedly changes its state from ''available'' to ''not available'' (and ''vice versa''), the BGP [[router (computing)|router]] controlling that path has to repeatedly add and remove the path record from its routing table (''flaps'' the path), thus spending local resources such as [[CPU]] and [[Random-access memory|RAM]] and, even more, broadcasting useless information to peer routers. To prevent this undesired behavior, an algorithm named ''route flapping damping'' assigns each route a weight that gets bigger each time the route changes its state and decays exponentially with time. When the weight reaches a certain limit, no more flapping is done, thus suppressing the route.

{{wide image|doubling_time_vs_half_life.svg|640px|Graphs comparing doubling times and half lives of exponential growths (bold lines) and decay (faint lines), and their 70/''t'' and 72/''t'' approximations. In the [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Doubling_time_vs_half_life.svg SVG version], hover over a graph to highlight it and its complement.}}