title: Measuring Big O of multiplication in Python
body: <p>As I understand it, the Order of Complexity for multiplication is quadratic so if a multiply two 1-digit numbers together there will be 1 operation, two 2-digit numbers together there will be 4 operations, two 3-digit numbers 9 operations and so on.</p>
  
  <p>I wanted to see this complexity by timing the execution of a program that simply multiplied two numbers together. Unexpectedly, regardless of the size of the numbers, the execution time is the same.</p>
  
  <pre><code>import time
  
  num1 = 135
  num2 = 342
  
  start = time.time()
  total = num1 * num2
  finish = time.time()
  elapsed = finish - start
  
  print elapsed
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So the result is <code>9.53674316406e-07</code> if I multiply two 3-digit numbers or two 30-digit numbers.</p>
  
  <p>What is it that I'm misunderstanding?</p>