To gauge the complexity of a computational task, mathematicians and computer scientists

Chapter 2, Problem 45

(choose chapter or problem)

To gauge the complexity of a computational task, mathematicians and computer scientists count the number of elementary operations (additions, subtractions, multiplications, and divisions) required. For a rough count, we will sometimes consider multiplications and divisions only, referring to those jointly as multiplicative operations. As an example, we examine the process of inverting a 2 x 2 matrix by elimination.-a, requires 2 multiplicative operations: b/a and \/a(where b' = b/a, and e = 1 /a) c (I), requires 2 multiplicative operations: ah' and ce+d', requires 2 multiplicative operationsbf (II), requires 2 multiplicative operationsThe whole process requires 8 multiplicative operations. Note that we do not count operations with predictable results, such as l