Talk:Computational complexity theory: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:10, 24 December 2005

Revision as of 16:12, 24 December 2005

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==Suggestions for real-life examples==

There are several problems that seem to have a high computationcomputational complexity, but are not yet fully computerized. One example is '''payroll processing'''. The computational complexity of payroll processing is made unnecessarily high by various tax laws. Splitting such taxes as social security between the employer and employee is economically pointless and serves only to increase the complexity of payroll processing. (These taxes really ought to be paid by the employees so that they have a more honest conceptual understanding of the full tax burden they bear. Besides, payroll processing is taxing enough without having to pay payroll taxes.) Various state income tax schemes further complicate the process, as do laws such as the [[Davis-Bacon Act]] that require the payment of different wages for different jobs.

Another example is the computation of efficient paths of transport for freight and passengers. The highway transportation system solves this problem by parallelizing the computation among the various drivers. Other situations such as ports, shipping and receiving departments, airports, and train depots often have more centralized control that results in an extremely high concentration of computational complexity and the need for great speed in real time. Hence the high security often employed in such situations and the need to avoid distracting workers such as longshoremen from their jobs. Perhaps these situations would benefit from the further study of computational complexity theory.

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