[scottlamb]

> If work accomplished is proportional to load, then the total work done by the entire system is O(number_of_servers * log log number_of_servers). It seems very suspicious, magical even, that the total work is more than linear with the number of servers. Free energy discovered?

No free energy for at least a couple reasons:

* This is O(...) meaning (roughly) "bounded above by", not Theta(...) meaning "bounded above and below by".

* This is max load, not average load. Even if it were theta, it wouldn't follow from the max load on a server being Theta(log log number_of_servers) that the total load is Theta(number_of_servers * log log number_of_servers).