The Logistic Growth Curve

Interest in a better understanding of the growth of populations was undoubtedly raised by Malthus (1798) in his famous Essay on the Principle of Population. Using hardly any mathematics, Malthus claimed that“population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio and subsistence in an arithmetical ratio.” It was in this spirit that the Belgian mathematician Pierre-François Verhulst (1804–1849), with some encouragement from his compatriot Adolphe Quetelet, studied a model that included a term slowing population growth