Final answer:
A program with 0.075*n no-operation instructions (nops) can potentially run faster on a pipeline with forwarding because forwarding can reduce the need for stall cycles due to data hazards, but the improvement might be minimal if data hazards are infrequent.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question refers to whether a program with only 0.075*n no-operation instructions (nops) can possibly run faster on a pipeline with forwarding. Forwarding (or data hazard avoidance) is a technique used in pipelined processors to decrease the time delays (hazards) caused by data dependencies.
With forwarding, the result of a previous instruction can be 'forwarded' to a subsequent instruction without having to wait for the previous instruction to complete its entire cycle through the pipeline. Consequently, if nops are used to avoid hazards in a pipeline without forwarding, introducing forwarding can indeed reduce the number of these stall cycles, potentially leading to performance improvements.
However, the specific improvement also depends on how often the forwarding actually comes into play to resolve a hazard. With only 0.075*n nops, it implies that data hazards are quite infrequent. Therefore, the performance gains, while possible, might be minimal if the occurrences of hazards that can be mitigated by forwarding are rarer in the program's execution.