The Effects of Moore's Law and Slacking on Large Computations
1999/12/09 by Christopher Gottbrath, C Gottbrath, Gottbrath, C +11 · 6 voices · 1 citation
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9912202
arxiv created 1999/12/09 · openalex publication_date 1999/12/09 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Abstract
We show that, in the context of Moore's Law, overall productivity can be increased for large enough computations by `slacking' or waiting for some period of time before purchasing a computer and beginning the calculation.
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Discussions
- one of my favorite cheeky papers, from 1999, is this one where the authors argue that sometimes it is better to simply wait and do nothing, because your astrophysical simulations will complete faster [bsky, 115 points, 5 comments]
- The Effects of Moore’s Law and Slacking on Large Computations [1999] [pdf] [hn, 11 points, 0 comments]
- I just realized that I missed the 25 year anniversary of The Slacking Paper last month!! arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph... (Is it still one of the things I'm most proud of in my career? Maaaaaaybe) @gottbrath [bsky, 11 points, 2 comments]
- There's a paper on that! arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph... [bsky, 8 points, 3 comments]
- The Effects of Moore's Law and Slacking on Large Computations [hn, 1 points, 0 comments]
- The Effects of Moore's Law and Slacking on Large Computations (1999) [hn, 1 points, 0 comments]
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