The N Squared Pizza Problem
Machine LearningThe N Squared Pizza ProblemWhat ordering and not eating a large pizza tells us about ML memory managementDaniel MillerSeptember 16, 202610 min readImage generated by authorA 12-inch pizza is not half again as much pizza as an 8-inch one. This is because the pizza's area follows the square of its radius. People generally have poor intuition for areas, or any thing that grows quicker than its linear boundaries.
- ▪Machine LearningThe N Squared Pizza ProblemWhat ordering and not eating a large pizza tells us about ML memory managementDaniel MillerSeptember 16, 202610 min readImage generated by authorA 12-inch pizza is not half again as much pizza as
- ▪This is because the pizza's area follows the square of its radius.
- ▪People generally have poor intuition for areas, or any thing that grows quicker than its linear boundaries.
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| Original publisher | Towards Data Science |
| Canonical URL | https://towardsdatascience.com/the-n-squared-pizza-problem/ |
| Publication time | Wed, 16 Sep 2026 11:00:02 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-16T11:03:41.632Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-16T11:03:41.632Z |
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| Cluster | lgAXT5131K4U · 1 stories |
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| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Machine LearningThe N Squared Pizza ProblemWhat ordering and not eating a large pizza tells us about ML memory managementDaniel MillerSeptember 16, 202610 min readImage generated by authorA 12-inch pizza is not half again as much pizza as an 8-inch one. It is 2.25x as much. This is because the pizza's area follows the square of its radius. People generally have poor intuition for areas, or any thing that grows quicker than its linear boundaries. This is why pizzerias price by diameter and customers reliably buy pizzas they can't finish.Figure 1. Volume increasing at 2x the rate compared to perimeter. Image by author.The same failure of intuition sat inside a client's 3D scan-matching pipeline for the best part of a year. It cost them double the memory on every worker in the fleet.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Towards Data Science.
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