The name I've always seen given to this is the waterbed theory of complexity. There's a certain amount of necessary complexity in a problem, and pushing it dow

The name I've always seen given to this is the waterbed theory of complexity. There's a certain amount of necessary complexity in a problem, and pushing it down in one place just increases the complexity necessary somewhere else. The only way to reduce the necessary complexity involved is to solve a simpler problem instead. Note that this does not exclude the possibility of unnecessary complexity, which is also possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterbed_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterbed_theory