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ashkankiani • today at 12:41 AM • 3 replies • view on HN

What do you mean by "galactic"?


Replies

yyyk • today at 12:45 AM

Galactic algorithms have such huge constants they figuratively need a galaxy-sized computer and/or galaxy-sized problem, to have any advantage over the normal solutions. Imagine a generic sorting algorithm in O(n) that had a constant of 10^92 **. Technically superior but in practice unusable.

** Yes, I know that's proven to be impossible.

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