Blum speedup theorem

In computational complexity theory, Blum's speedup theorem, first stated by Manuel Blum in 1967, is a fundamental theorem about the complexity of computable functions.

Each computable function has an infinite number of different program representations in a given programming language. In the theory of algorithms one often strives to find a program with the smallest complexity for a given computable function and a given complexity measure (such a program could be called optimal). Blum's speedup theorem shows that for any complexity measure there are computable functions that are not optimal with respect to that measure. This also rules out the idea there is a way to assign to arbitrary functions their computational complexity, meaning the assignment to any f of the complexity of an optimal program for f. This does of course not exclude the possibility of finding the complexity of an optimal program for certain specific functions.

Given a Blum complexity measure ${\displaystyle (\varphi ,\Phi )}$ and a total computable function ${\displaystyle f}$ with two parameters, then there exists a total computable predicate ${\displaystyle g}$ (a boolean valued computable function) so that for every program ${\displaystyle i}$ for ${\displaystyle g}$, there exists a program ${\displaystyle j}$ for ${\displaystyle g}$ so that for almost all ${\displaystyle x}$

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