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It is not the case that Parallel algorithms that achieve speedup only by employing exponentially many processors relative to input size are of little practical significance
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Reasons For
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Reason for 1 of 2
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1.
The threshold between 'practical' and 'impractical' is historically contingent: transistor counts once deemed impossible are now routine.
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2.
Exponential processor growth via quantum entanglement or biological substrates may render current feasibility intuitions obsolete.
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3.
Dismissing algorithms based on current hardware constraints conflates empirical engineering limits with principled computational significance.
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Reason for 2 of 2
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1.
Turing and Gandy's analyses show that abstract computational significance is logically independent of physical implementability constraints.
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2.
An algorithm's theoretical role in complexity class separations and reductions retains practical significance even without physical instantiation, as it bounds what efficient solutions must look like.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
If parallel speedup requires exponentially many processors relative to input size, building a concrete computing device to implement such algorithms would be infeasible
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2.
Algorithms that cannot be concretely implemented have little practical significance
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