Algorithmic Complexity Quotes

Chess is far too complex to be definitively solved with any technology we can conceive of today. However, our looked-down-upon cousin, checkers, or draughts, suffered this fate quite recently thanks to the work of Jonathan Schaeffer at the University of Alberta and his unbeatable program Chinook.

There might be a hidden structure in pi that we simply haven't discovered.

A formula can be very simple, and create a universe of bottomless complexity.

Undecidability is a useful category even in dealing with restaurant menus.

No one knows what the right algorithm is, but it gives us hope that if we can discover some crude approximation of whatever this algorithm is and implement it on a computer, that can help us make a lot of progress.

In subjects that physicists think of as purely quantum, classical ideas and classical computational techniques can often be powerful.

It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.

The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.

I take the view that we all have permission to be a little baffled by quantum information science and algorithmic information theory.

It took me 1057 pages to describe the hundreds of mathematical equations, algorithms and programming techniques that I invented and used.

Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.

Yeah, computers are going to take over the programming business because they have become so fast recently that they can solve the Halting Problem in five seconds flat.

Computers are famous for being able to do complicated things starting from simple programs.

In any case, A New Kind of Science is a wonderful book, and I'm still absorbing its teachings.

Rule 1. You can't tell where a program is going to spend its time. Bottlenecks occur in surprising places, so don't try to second guess and put in a speed hack until you've proven that's where the bottleneck is

Once you have a computer that can do a few things - strictly speaking, one that has a certain 'sufficient set' of basic procedures - it can do basically anything any other computer can do. This, loosely, is the basis of the great principle of 'Universality'.

There was a failure to recognize the deep problems in AI; for instance, those captured in Blocks World. The people building physical robots learned nothing.

I suppose I sort of like effects that have some organic elements rather than ones that are entirely generated by a computer. Just because, no matter how complex the algorithm is, it's still an algorithm.

It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun.

I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.