Tag: theoretical

  • The 50-year-old problem that eludes theoretical computer science

    The 50-year-old problem that eludes theoretical computer science

    NP’s more challenging problems often have momentous practical applications. For these problems, an exhaustive brute-force search for a solution would likely go on for an impractically long time—geologic time—before producing an answer. If a brute-force search algorithm is the best algorithm possible, then P does not equal NP.  And among the cognoscenti, that’s apparently the…