A discussion is given of the analogy between the dynamo equation for the generation of a magnetic field by the motion of an electrically conducting fluid and the equation for the evolution of vorticity of a viscous fluid. In both cases exponential stretching is an important feature of the underlying instability problem. For the "fast" dynamo problem, the existence of exponential stretching (i.e., the positivity of the Lyapunov exponent) somewhere in the flow is a necessary condition when the flow is smooth. An example is presented of a flow with exponential stretching (an Anosov flow) that supports fast dynamo action. A parallel treatment is described for the linearized Navier-Stokes equations for the motion of a viscous fluid. In this problem the analogous necessary condition for "fast vorticity generation" is the existence of some instability in the corresponding Euler (i.e., inviscid) equation. Dynamo theory methods give a second related result, namely a universal geometric estimate from below on the growth rate of a small perturbation in an inviscid fluid. This bound gives an effective sufficient condition for local instability for Eulers equations. In particular, it is proved that a steady flow with a hyperbolic stagnation point is unstable. The growth rate of an infinitesimal perturbation in a metric with derivatives depends on this metric. This dependence is completely described.