--- title: Exponential Value at Linear Cost | daily.dev description: With each additional search step, the size of the haystack we can search doubles. The value of a search is exponential in the amount of effort. It's hard to... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/exponential-value-at-linear-cost-goeybhmkj twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Exponential Value at Linear Cost | daily.dev og:description: With each additional search step, the size of the haystack we can search doubles. The value of a search is exponential in the amount of effort. It's hard to... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/exponential-value-at-linear-cost-goeybhmkj og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/GOEybHmkJ.png og:image:alt: Exponential Value at Linear Cost og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Exponential Value at Linear Cost **[Marc Brooker](https://daily.dev/sources/brooker)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary With each additional search step, the size of the haystack we can search doubles. The value of a search is exponential in the amount of effort. It's hard to overstate how powerful this mechanism is, and how important it has been to the last couple decades of computer systems design. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Don’t just attend KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon, Merge Forward your experience\!](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-just-attend-kubecon-cloudnativecon-merge-forward-your-experience--l0rpp73x8) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Announcing H2 2026 KCDs](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-h2-2026-kcds-m96goajm1) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Two months of Open Community Groups](https://daily.dev/posts/two-months-of-open-community-groups-asf52zhbs) · CNCF · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#binary-search](https://daily.dev/tags/binary-search) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/exponential-value-at-linear-cost-goeybhmkj) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Exponential Value at Linear Cost","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/exponential-value-at-linear-cost-goeybhmkj","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/exponential-value-at-linear-cost-goeybhmkj"},"datePublished":"2023-09-08T19:38:50.428Z","dateModified":"2023-09-08T19:38:48.961Z","description":"With each additional search step, the size of the haystack we can search doubles. The value of a search is exponential in the amount of effort. It's hard to...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--HRgLpUt6--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2003","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--HRgLpUt6--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2003","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Marc Brooker","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Marc Brooker","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/eb8fae4f48ea4abb9c7714ef04af5121","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/brooker"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/exponential-value-at-linear-cost-goeybhmkj","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"binary-search","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Marc Brooker","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/brooker"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Exponential Value at Linear Cost"}]} ```