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A visual introduction to big O notation

(samwho.dev)
688 points samwho | 1 comments | 24 Aug 25 07:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.269s | source
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dekhn ◴[25 Aug 25 21:44 UTC] No.45019410[source]▶
What blows me away is that there are quantum calculations which grow as O**7 with respect to the number of atoms and scientists are fine with running them because N is small, computers get faster and more memory all the time, and the results are valuable.

(I'm not a computer science expert, so if I used the O(n) terminology differently from the standard, sorry).

replies(2): >>45020178 #>>45021948 #
1. wasabi991011 ◴[26 Aug 25 03:27 UTC] No.45021948[source]▶
"Fine with running them" is a bit of a stretch, though the gist is correct.

There's a whole hierarchy of quantum chemistry algorithms where accuracy is traded with asymptotic runtime, I think starting at N*^3 and going all the way to N!.