Question

Let’s say I wrote a program containing an algorithm that had an exponential runtime and then ran the program through a sufficiently large data set in which it would not finish for years.

What would happen to the computer?
Would it lock up?
Would it run at 100% capacity until either it finishes or the power shuts off?
Would the hardware fail before it finishes?

I’m doing homework on time complexity if you haven’t guessed already. This isn’t a homework question. It’s just a random thought I had.

Answer 1

What would happen to the computer?

It will run the algorithm until it finishes [or have an unexpected error]

Would it lock up?

It depends how the algorithm is implemented – but usually – the “program” will probably freeze, but the computer will still be able to work [probably slower], especially if the machine is multi-cored.

Would it run at 100% capacity until either it finishes or the power
shuts off?

If the algorithm is implemented serially, and the machine is multi-cored – it will not run on 100% capcity. If it is multi-threaded – it probably will.

Would the hardware fail before it finishes?

for algorithm that needs 2^n ops, and n=1000 [for modern present machines] – it most likely will [earth will not be here before it is done]. But there are no guarantees for it.

Important: The problem with exonential problems is not their effect on machines, this is not the problem with them. The problem is they take a long time. how long? well, for O(n!) algorithm [naive TSP implementation], for n == 20, the run-time is ~decade. increase n by one, just a small change in the problem size – and you get ~200 years run time! an extra addition will make it ~4000 years… [again, assuming modern present machine, and for c the constant for O(n!) c >= 1