I think theres some metaworry that if all attempts to prove p np are treated as kookery, nobody serious will dare circulate any work on it, and so nobody will actually end up proving it. Np proof richard lipton and ken regan, godels lost letter and pnp, august 11, 2010. Deolalikarin todistus joutui kuitenkin heti arvostelun kohteeksi. On august 8 of this year, vinay deolalikar, principal research scientist in hps storage and information management platforms lab in palo alto, published a scientific proof on p not equal to np available here as an hp labs technical report. The commentor asdf has correctly identified that what is being promised here is the mountaintop from a mountaineer who is. Np as anyone could predict, the alleged proof has already been slashdotted see also liptons blog and bacons blog, and my own inbox has been filling up faster than the gulf of mexico.
He should be concrete while telling the differences. He and i have been exchanging emails, and as noted in the. On 6 august, vinay deolalikar, a mathematician at hewlettpackard labs in palo alto, california, sent out draft copies of a paper titled simply p. August 2010 des bei hewlettpackard angestellten mathematikers vinay deolalikar. P 6 np vinay deolalikar hp research labs, palo alto vinay. The claimed proof has inspired a breathtakingly active blog and wiki discussion by some of the top mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists in the world. The paper has not been refereed, and i havent seen any independent verifications or refutations.
Despite the fact that the paper is by a respected researcher hp labs vinay deolalikar and not a crank, my bet is that the proof is flawed edited to add 816. Analysis of vinay deolalikar s recent preprint claiming to prove that p. Np, richard lipton and ken regan, godels lost letter and pnp, august 10 2010. Vinay deolalikar, a research scientist at hp labs in palo alto, ca, posted his proof online and. Vinay deolalikars proof of pnp and the power of webtest. I am supposed to have studied abc of complexity theory in my undergraduate and graduate schools. If, on the other hand p np, the consequences would be even more stunning, since every one of these problems would have a polynomial time. If the result stands, it would prove that the two classes p and np are not identical, and impose severe limits on what computers can accomplish implying that many tasks may be fundamentally, irreducibly complex. So its breakable in polynomial time, yet cryptographically secure. It was my understanding that terence tao felt that there was no hope of recovery. Np in a year, they are going to launch a war against the earth, then it is not the good. Nonetheless the online maths community has lit up with excitement as this document, claiming to prove one of the major outstanding theorems in maths circulated. Is p, which is known to be a subset of np, a proper subset.
Vinay happens to be a graduate of the university of southern california. If pnp, you could still have a cipher that decrypts in linear time with the key and n time without the key. Throughout our proof, we observe that the ability to compute a property on structures in polynomial time is. As one of the six unsolved millenium prize problems and.
It illustrated the interplay of principles from various areas, which was the major effort in constructing the proof. Possible fatal flaws in the finite model part of deolalikar s proof neil immerman is one of the worlds experts on finite model theory. Vinay deolalikar, a mathematician and electrical engineer at hewlettpackard, posted a proposed proof of what is known as the p versus np problem on a. Has the biggest question in computer science been solved. However, the attempt seems to be quite genuine, and deolalikar has published papers in the same field in the pa. I can understand in markov network, you would have certain family of distributions satisfying markov conditional independence property. Were the p is not equal to np proof claimer, vinay deolalikar, a good boy of academia, he would have spent his time applying for funding to apply computer science principles to, say, military or. His answer is that the two classes do not coincide. As of this writing, vinay deolalikar still hasnt retracted his p.
Ive only scanned through the paper, but heres a rough summary of how it all hangs together. It seemed highly unlikely but one could not dismiss it out of hand. However, there should be also a computational modelindependent way to determine this number of parameters, as he claims this number is exponential for ksat in hard phase. This terse assertion could have profound implications for the ability of computers to solve many kinds of problem. The preliminary version was meant to solicit feedback from a few researchers as is customarily done. Vinay deolalikar today i came across this post where one of the computer scientist vinay deolalikar from hp labs solved one of the long standing unsolved puzzle in computer science field. So when vinay deolalikar, a computer scientist at hewlett packard labs in india, sent an email on august 7, 2010, to a few top researchers claiming that p doesnt equal npthereby answering this question in the negative and staking a claim on the milliondollar millennium prize offered by the clay mathematics instituteit. After all, one would simply have to choose the natural number n so large that when the machine does not deliver a result, it makes no sense to think more about the problem. Aug 06, 2010 is p, which is known to be a subset of np, a proper subset. Meyer solves the p versus np problem philosophically by showing p is equal to np in the random access with unit multiply mram model. Shtetloptimized blog archive eight signs a claimed p.
Np math problem proposed by hp labs vinay deolalikar. One needs to know how many local minima there are that could trap your search algorithm. The assumptions involved in the current definition of the p versus np problem as a problem involving non deterministic turing machines ndtms from axiomatic automata theory are criticized. Of the many prominent mathematicians who have expressed doubts about the claimed p np proof of hp researcher vinay deolalikar, few are more entitled to. Abstract we demonstrate the separation of the complexity class np from its subclass p.
Shtetloptimized blog archive putting my money where my. One of the main fora for this has been the blog of richard lipton that brandon has. Theres a new paper circulating that claims to prove that p. The major open problem in computer science a major open problem in mathematics a clay institute millennium problem million dollar prize. Im dead seriousand i can afford it about as well as youd think i can. The p versus np problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science. So when vinay deolalikar, a computer scientist at hewlett packard labs in india, sent an email on august 7, 2010, to a few top researchers claiming that p doesnt equal np thereby answering this question in the negative and staking a claim on the milliondollar millennium prize. Even though vinay deolalikar has solved this p vs np mystery but many of the scientists have not accepted his way of solving the theory, they want him to solve it practically in the right way. For higher analogues of these classes, we exhibit positive and negative results.
If deolalikar was right, he had cut one of mathematics. If p np, we could never solve these problems efficiently. Here is a pdf of one of the josephyoung papers, and another tr. Deolalikar proof pdf from what i can understand, deolalikar s main innovation seems to be to use some concepts from statistical physics and finite model theory and tie them to. They seem to revolve around an assumption made by dr. In subsequent years, many problems central to diverse areas of application were shown to be np complete see gj79 for a list. P vs np mathematical problem is successfully solved by an indian brain. It seems to be much more easy to come to ends with a paper, when definitions are given.
Yesterday, a paper was published concerning the conjunctive boolean satisfiability problem, which asks whether a given list of logical statements contradict each other or not. May 17, 2019 he should be concrete while telling the differences. On august 6, 2010, vinay deolalikar announced a proof 100page manuscript that p 6 np. For proving p np we can solve an np problem in polynomial time. P np hype, dave bacon, the quantum pontiff, august 10 2010. Hp labs vinay deolalikar proposes proof on p not equal. Vinay deolalikar, a mathematician and electrical engineer at hewlettpackard, posted a proposed proof of what is known as the p versus np problem on a web site, and quietly notified a number of the key researchers. So no proof of p vs np can work by looking at the structure of solution spaces. So there seems to be some going out of their way to treat a serious goodfaith effort with respect. New proof unlocks answer to the p versus np problemmaybe. More precisely, the p versus np problem is shown to be a scientific rather than a mathematical problem. Now, its the slow roasting of an hp mathematician forbes. On august 6, 2010, a computer scientist named vinay deolalikar published a paper with a name as concise as it was audacious. Vinay deolalikar of hewlettpackard labs in palo alto, california, has released a draft paper titled simply p.
A few days ago, vinay deolalikar of hp labs started circulating a. P, np, and is academia inhospitable to big discoveries. It asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified can also be solved quickly. In subsequent years, many problems central to diverse areas of application were shown to be npcomplete see gj79 for a list. Apr 14, 2020 vinay deolalikar is standing by his \mathsfp eq \mathsfnp claim and proof. Recently there has been a paper floating around by vinay deolalikar at hp labs which claims to have proved that p. Np is proved, then to whatever extent theoretical computer science continues to exist at all, it will have a very different character. This paper is still a draft, and in a very preliminary form. From what i can understand, deolalikar s main innovation seems to be to use some concepts from statistical physics and finite model theory and tie them to the problem. Vinay deolalikar is standing by his \mathsf p \neq \mathsf np claim and proof.
I have no idea either, and the rest of the document just gets more confusing for a nonmathematician. These versions differ in their definition of input length. Background material for the various concepts used in the preprint. If, on the other hand p np, the consequences would be even more stunning, since every one of these problems would have a polynomial time solution. As one of the six unsolved millenium prize problems and arguably.
Deolalikar that, if p np, it would necessarily assume a. Vinay deolalikar is a principal research scientist at hp labs who has done important research in various areas of networks. Vinay deolalikar, a principal research scientist at hp labs, claims to have definitively proved that p. It asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified can also be. So a polynomial time solution to prroof leads, by a series of mechanical transformations, to a polynomial time solution of satisfiability, which in turn can be used to solve any other np complete problem in polynomial time. A few days ago, vinay deolalikar of hp labs started circulating a claimed proof of p. What is the current status of vinay deolalikars proof. It is bad news for the power of computing sciencedirect. Manuscript sent on 6th august to several leading researchers in various areas. Vinay deolalikar who also works in the hp labs now claims to have solved the problem.
Deolalikar that, if pnp, it would necessarily assume a. Lance fortnow georgia institute of technology a personal view. Lo0212046, we establish in the context of infinite time turing machines that p. Possible fatal flaws in the finite model part of deolalikars proof neil immerman is one of the worlds experts on finite model theory. He has already shared them with vinay, and suggested that i highlight them here. These really have to do with gibbs potential representation of a distribution. Jul 30, 2019 deolalikar responds to issues about his p. In august 2010, vinay deolalikar, who works at the research arm of hewlettpackard in palo alto, california, believes he has solved the riddle of p vs np in a move that could transform mankinds use of computers. Extending results of schindler, hamkins and welch, we establish in the context of infinite time turing machines that p is properly contained in np. This means that to refute the argument it now suffices to refute one of these two parts. His discovery has generated excitement among computer scientists worldwide, and has garnered coverage on traditional media sites business and tech. Could someone explain how this proof works for us less mathematically incl. What i am interested in is can vinay use his technology to give a new proof of this theorem. Three weeks back, on august 8, an hp researcher vinay deolalikar put up a draft of a proof sketch for one of the six millennium problems called p np on the internet.
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