"The Complexity of Songs" was a journal article published by computer scientist Donald Knuth in 1977, as an in-joke about computational complexity theory. The article capitalizes on the tendency of popular songs to evolve from long and content-rich ballads to highly repetitive texts with little or no meaningful content. The article notes how some songs can reach a complexity level, for a song of length N words, as formula: O(log N). The gist of the article is repeated, below, maintaining the wit of the key concepts.
Read more about The Complexity Of Songs: Article Summary, Further Developments
Famous quotes containing the words complexity and/or songs:
“It is not only their own need to mother that takes some women by surprise; there is also the shock of discovering the complexity of alternative child-care arrangements that have been made to sound so simple. Those for whom the intended solution is equal parenting have found that some parents are more equal than others.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“And songs climb out of the flames of the near campfires,
Pale, pastel things exquisite in their frailness
With a note or two to indicate it isn’t lost,
On them at least. The songs decorate our notion of the world
And mark its limits, like a frieze of soap-bubbles.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)