polynomial time

(definition)

Definition: When the execution time of a computation, m(n), is no more than a polynomial function of the problem size, n. More formally m(n) = O(n^k) where k is a constant.

Specialization (... is a kind of me.)
sublinear time algorithm.

See also NP, exponential, logarithmic.

Note: Broadly speaking, polynomial time algorithms are reasonable to compute. The time to run exponential algorithms grows too fast to expect to be able to compute exact solutions in all cases.

Author: PEB

Go to the Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures home page.

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Entry modified Fri Aug 13 15:04:15 2004.
HTML page formatted Wed Oct 26 09:47:58 2005.

Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "polynomial time", from Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures, Paul E. Black, ed., NIST.
http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/polynomialtm.html