Sometimes impact of incidents is determined by the speed of realization. Generally more slowly it happens, more powerful the outcome becomes. Some examples are,

  • Boiling frog (though hasn’t been proven yet) : If a frog is boiled slowly, it cannot be aware of the situation and waits to die
  • Epidemics: if quick and deadly -> cannot propagate because people can take measures; but if it spreads slowly it can be more fatal for the population
  • Government administration -> sharp decisions generate big reactions, slow changes make big changes possible (sounds familiar)
  • Structural behaviour under gradual vs sudden placement of load (gradual placement of load increases the capacity of the structure)
  • Mutation vs recombination: Although mutation can create interesting outcomes, recombination is the main drive for the evolution of species
  • Step sizes for numeric algorithms: If large step sizes are used, the algorithm oscillates; if the step size is small it is more certain that it will converge eventually