Devices or substances that increase the speed or rate of a process. In physics, machines that speed up particles; in business, programs that speed up startup development.
From Latin 'acceleratus', past participle of 'accelerare' (to quicken), from 'ad-' (to) + 'celerare' (to hasten), from 'celer' (swift). The modern technical usage emerged with 20th-century physics and business terminology.
Particle accelerators and startup accelerators operate on the same principle - they create controlled environments where things move faster than they would naturally. The Large Hadron Collider and Y Combinator both 'accelerate' their subjects toward breakthrough moments.
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