Computing in Perspective

A Modern Processor

One of the top notch CPUs money can buy for the consumer market is at the time of writing the Intel i7-940XM processor. It's smallest feature is 45 nanometers in size and has four processing cores equipped. Each of these cores is ticking at the frequency of 2.13 GHz. It's sitting on an LGA 1366 socket which connects it with the mainboard. The socket carries that name because of the 1,366 pins that act as connection between CPU and mainboard. That number is unrelated but amazing by itself when you think abuot how small these things have to be as the size of the CPU is only 4.4 × 4.3 cm.

To get that particular part of the computer into perspective, we have to compare it with the physical limits of data transmission. The speed of light in vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second. Inside a copper wire however signals only travel at around 3/4 of that, but let's just go with Grace Hopper's example and assume we're operating at the speed of light. If a processor is ticking at 2.13 GHz it means that a single tick takes around 0.39 nanoseconds. In that time a signal can travel about 12 centimeters.

Imagine that in a bit more than a second light travels from earth to moon, a speed we cannot even imagine. Yet our modern computers (and I must add that we slowed down frequencies already) tick at a rate where for something we can measure light only moves a distance of about 10 centimeters.

The same processor also consists of 731 million transistors. You could take that one CPU, cut it into little pieces and give every person in Europe one of them. Just that they are so incredible small that you would have a hard time doing so.

Your Average Computer Game

Computer games are one of the most amazing things when it comes to every day use of heavy number crunching. A HD screen has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. This makes more than 2.1 million pixels that need to be filled about 60 times a second. Most modern games are applying 3D rendering techniques that need more than one pass per pixel. Even if each pixel would be shaded exactly once, you still need around 126 million calculations for each pixel. And this is just the shading aspect.

Besides that, a modern graphics device is even more impressive than your average CPU. A modern graphics card is made of 3 billion transistors that can fill 30 billion pixels per second. The data bus is powerful enough to shovel about 150 gigabytes through the wire.

But not only graphics are impressive. The other important aspect of computer games is often low latency network connectivity. Video games often are played over networks with other players in the world. Modern shooters allow 32 players and more to engage in cross-country sessions where the latency between the players is less than 50 milliseconds. Sophisticated algorithms are sending bullets, player movements, physics and tons of other information over the internet and synchronizing the information for each player involved. While this of course does not always work well due to our physical limits and the fact that millions of people are sending data over these wires we are able to play together with barely any noticeable latency.

Big O and Runtimes

While this is not so much related to computing but algorithms, it also helped me a lot understanding dimensions in computing. I think everybody at one point has a fairly basic understanding what the Big O notation is. Simplified it gives you an idea of the expected complexity of an algorithm in time or memory usage. Some of the most common forms are O(1) for constant, O(n) for linear or O(n²) for quadratic complexity.

The idea is that if n becomes very, very large (indefinite) the complexity greatly varies. If getting an item from a collection would be O(1) you would get back any item from the collection in the same time, no matter if it's the first or the last. One could think of it that way: If the complexity was O(n²) and you would get the first item in 1 second, the 10th would take a minute and 40 seconds. That's not entirely correct, but not totally wrong either.

Constant runtime is easy to understand, so is linear runtime. But if I give you an O(log n) — what's closer: constant or linear runtime?

If you are like me and not very bright at mathematics and you don't have a good idea of the logarithmic scale besides it growing slowly, you could compare it to the “width of a number”. This great comparison comes from the professor I mentioned before. log10(10) is 1, log10(100) is 2, log10(1000) is 3 etc. In fact you could use the logarithm to implement a function that returns the number of digits in an integer:

def digits(num):
    return int(floor(log10(num)) + 1)

If you keep in mind that numbers in computing are also very often limited in size you could think of the complexity of O(log n) as being nearly the same as O(1). For example if the memory consumption of something would be O(log n) and we are running on a 32bit system, chances are your maximum memory consumption would be O(10). 10 because of the rounded up logarithm to the base 10 of 4 billion which is the largest unsigned integer that fits into 32 bit. Because 10 is a constant it would mean we can shorten it and end up with O(1). So yes, much, much closer to constant complexity than linear one.

Sharing Comparisons

Unfortunately I am really bad at sharing these “comparison objects”. Mainly because what makes sense to me does not necessarily make sense to other people. I can imagine a liter of water, a meter or centimeter quite well, but if you are American, chances are neither of these things have expressions you feel comfortable comparing too. When it comes to monetary values I often compare things to local prices, GDP of Austria and other things that absolutely have no meaning to you.

What would really be interesting is some kind of book, website or manual that collects some popular comparisons of various things. I remember my lectures by said professor really well because some of the comparisons he came up with were really great and general enough that everybody had a basic understanding of the dimensions he was talking about.

Why do we Compare?

I think one of the most useful skills I personally ever acquired was the ability to judge and compare various things. People love to confuse other people by throwing numbers around but numbers are quite meaningless unless you can compare them to something else you already know. A million Euros / Dollars can be nothing, but it could also mean a lot. It depends on the scale of known things you are comparing it with. It also is a kind of security measure. If you know what's the common price for a hamburger is you can save yourself from paying too much for it when you go to a restaurant you don't know yet. But besides getting a better feel for what to pay (or what data structure to use in what situation) it also gives you a good idea of the complexity of certain things in general.

Jeff Dean added a slide to one of his presentations which did the rounds afterwards. It shows the “numbers everybody should know”. I guess there is no point in learning the exat numbers but some of these stem from a basic understanding of how computers and our world works:

Having a basic idea of dimensions in computing makes it possible to brainstorm, accept and reject ideas without having to consult Wikipedia every few seconds. This makes you more efficient when trying to do something you didn't do so far. It might not be that you are completely right the first time, but it speeds up your thought process a lot.

At the same time one has to build up some certain confidence with these numbers to be efficient on discussing such things with other developers. Nothing feels more embarrassing than to suggest something completely out of proportions or to be anxious and not sharing an idea because one does not have the confidence to propose something.

I come back to that every once in a while now with my recent adventures into the world of voxels and blocks for my Minecraft inspired engine where naive approaches for infinite or at least very large worlds will instantly hit all kinds of technology and physical problems.