Ballmer Peak
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The Ballmer Peak is a humorous concept invented by Randall Munroe in the xkcd webcomic, claiming that a programmer who is appropriately intoxicated can achieve a high level of productivity. The concept loosely tied to former Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer,[1][2] and is likely a play on Balmer series of hydrogen spectral lines named for the scientist Johann Balmer.[3]
A San Francisco organization, Originate, has organized a “Ballmer Peak-A-Thon”, an open bar event where people were given “5 hours to find the elusive Ballmer peak, and build the best worst business possible.”[2]
There is no scientific basis for the Ballmer Peak, though researchers have studied adjacent topics, such as the impact of inebriation on problem solving.[4] In addition, the Ballmer Peak has been the subject of satirical academic studies, including a 2024 paper presented at SIGBOVIK, a satirical computer science conference organized by Carnegie Mellon students,[5] which caught broader attention in the programming community.[6] That study, which tested blood alcohol levels of only one male subject tackling competitive computer programming questions, found no evidence of a sudden “peak” of programming ability but did generally find that speed of solving the challenges increased with some alcohol consumption before a rapid decline.[5]
References[edit]
- ^ "Ballmer Peak". xkcd. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ a b "Microsoft's Steve Ballmer was once Bill Gates' assistant, now he's the 6th richest person in the world. Here are his 5 tips for success". Fortune. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
- ^ "323: Ballmer Peak - explain xkcd". www.explainxkcd.com. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ "Bottoms Up: The Ballmer Peak Is Real, Study Says". Observer. 2012-04-13. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ a b "The Ballmer Peak: An Empirical Search". arxiv.org. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
- ^ Chen, Raymond (2024-04-16). "In search of the Ballmer Peak, and other results from SIGBOVIK 2024". The Old New Thing. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
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