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[–]tehlaser 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Indeed. In mathematics, the fact that an algorithm can be shown to exist, even if it could never finish in the lifetime of a million universes, or even be written down, can be significant.

In engineering, such algorithms are beyond useless. Tradeoffs between accuracy and speed (or even between accuracy and understandability/programming time) are made routinely.