brute force
4 definitions found
brute force - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :
Brute \Brute\, a. [F. brut, nasc., brute, fem., raw, rough,
rude, brutish, L. brutus stupid, irrational: cf. It. & Sp.
bruto.]
1. Not having sensation; senseless; inanimate; unconscious;
without intelligence or volition; as, the brute earth; the
brute powers of nature.
[1913 Webster]
2. Not possessing reason, irrational; unthinking; as, a brute
beast; the brute creation.
[1913 Webster]
A creature . . . not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
3. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of, a brute beast.
Hence: Brutal; cruel; fierce; ferocious; savage; pitiless;
as, brute violence. --Macaulay.
[1913 Webster]
The influence of capital and mere brute labor.
--Playfair.
[1913 Webster]
4. Having the physical powers predominating over the mental;
coarse; unpolished; unintelligent.
[1913 Webster]
A great brute farmer from Liddesdale. --Sir W.
Scott.
[1913 Webster]
5. Rough; uncivilized; unfeeling. [R.]
[1913 Webster]
brute force, The application of predominantly physical
effort to achieve a goal that could be accomplished with
less effort if more carefully considered. Figuratively,
repetitive or strenuous application of an obvious or
simple tactic, as contrasted with a more clever stratagem
achieving the same goal with less effort; -- as, the first
prime numbers were discovered by the brute force
repetition of the Sieve of Eratosthenes.
[PJC]
brute force - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :
brute force
<programming> A primitive programming style in which the
programmer relies on the computer's processing power instead
of using his own intelligence to simplify the problem, often
ignoring problems of scale and applying naive methods suited
to small problems directly to large ones. The term can also
be used in reference to programming style: brute-force
programs are written in a heavy-handed, tedious way, full of
repetition and devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction
(see also brute force and ignorance).
The canonical example of a brute-force algorithm is
associated with the "travelling salesman problem" (TSP), a
classical NP-hard problem:
Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive to N
other cities. In what order should the cities be visited in
order to minimise the distance travelled?
The brute-force method is to simply generate all possible
routes and compare the distances; while guaranteed to work and
simple to implement, this algorithm is clearly very stupid in
that it considers even obviously absurd routes (like going
from Boston to Houston via San Francisco and New York, in that
order). For very small N it works well, but it rapidly
becomes absurdly inefficient when N increases (for N = 15,
there are already 1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to
consider, and for N = 1000 - well, see bignum). Sometimes,
unfortunately, there is no better general solution than brute
force. See also NP-complete.
A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is
finding the smallest number in a large list by first using an
existing program to sort the list in ascending order, and then
picking the first number off the front.
Whether brute-force programming should actually be considered
stupid or not depends on the context; if the problem is not
terribly big, the extra CPU time spent on a brute-force
solution may cost less than the programmer time it would take
to develop a more "intelligent" algorithm. Additionally, a
more intelligent algorithm may imply more long-term complexity
cost and bug-chasing than are justified by the speed
improvement.
When applied to cryptography, it is usually known as brute force attack
.
Ken Thompson, co-inventor of Unix, is reported to have
uttered the epigram "When in doubt, use brute force". He
probably intended this as a ha ha only serious, but the
original Unix kernel's preference for simple, robust and
portable algorithms over brittle "smart" ones does seem to
have been a significant factor in the success of that
operating system. Like so many other tradeoffs in software
design, the choice between brute force and complex,
finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult one that requires
both engineering savvy and delicate aesthetic judgment.
[Jargon File]
(1995-02-14)
brute force - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :
brute force
adj.
Describes a primitive programming style, one in which the programmer
relies on the computer's processing power instead of using his or her
own intelligence to simplify the problem, often ignoring problems of
scale and applying naive methods suited to small problems directly to
large ones. The term can also be used in reference to programming
style: brute-force programs are written in a heavyhanded, tedious
way,
full of repetition and devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction
(see also brute force and ignorance).
The canonical example of a brute-force algorithm is associated with
the `traveling salesman problem' (TSP), a classical NP-hard
problem:
Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive to N other
cities. In what order should the cities be visited in order to
minimize the distance travelled? The brute-force method is to simply
generate all possible routes and compare the distances; while
guaranteed to work and simple to implement, this algorithm is clearly
very stupid in that it considers even obviously absurd routes (like
going from Boston to Houston via San Francisco and New York, in that
order). For very small N it works well, but it rapidly becomes
absurdly inefficient when N increases (for N = 15, there are already
1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to consider, and for N = 1000 --
well, see bignum). Sometimes, unfortunately, there is no better
general solution than brute force. See also NP- and rubber-hose cryptanalysis
.
A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is finding
the
smallest number in a large list by first using an existing program to
sort the list in ascending order, and then picking the first number
off the front.
Whether brute-force programming should actually be considered stupid
or not depends on the context; if the problem is not terribly big,
the
extra CPU time spent on a brute-force solution may cost less than the
programmer time it would take to develop a more `intelligent'
algorithm. Additionally, a more intelligent algorithm may imply more
long-term complexity cost and bug-chasing than are justified by the
speed improvement.
Ken Thompson, co-inventor of Unix, is reported to have uttered the
epigram "When in doubt, use brute force". He probably intended this
as
a ha ha only serious, but the original Unix kernel's preference for
simple, robust, and portable algorithms over brittle `smart' ones
does seem to have been a significant factor in the success of that
OS.
Like so many other tradeoffs in software design, the choice between
brute force and complex, finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult
one that requires both engineering savvy and delicate esthetic
judgment.
brute force - Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :
73 Moby Thesaurus words for "brute force":
amperage, armipotence, authority, beef, big battalions,
black power, charge, charisma, clout, cogence, cogency, compulsion,
dint, drive, duress, effect, effectiveness, effectuality, energy,
flower power, force, force majeure, forcefulness, full blast,
full force, influence, main force, main strength, mana, might,
might and main, mightiness, moxie, muscle power, naked force,
physical force, pizzazz, poop, potence, potency, potentiality,
power, power pack, power structure, power struggle, powerfulness,
prepotency, productiveness, productivity, puissance, pull, punch,
push, rule of might, sinew, steam, steamroller, strength,
strong arm, superiority, superpower, tyranny, ultima ratio,
validity, vehemence, vigor, vim, virility, virtue, virulence,
vitality, wattage, weight
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