When computer scientists hang out at cocktail parties, they're apt to chat, among other things, about the single most important unsolved problem in computer science: the question, Does P = NP?

1. The P v. NP problem asks whether all problems whose solutions can be verified in some time can also be solved in a comparable length of time. What is this length of time called for the purpose of ...

In the 17th century, a Dutch draper named Anton van Leeuwenhoek used a small handmade microscope to peer into a world previously unseen by the human eye. Thus he discovered microorganisms and gave ...

"The P-NP problem is the most important open problem in computer science, if not all of mathematics. Simply stated, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly checked by computer can ...

Last week, HP Labs mathematician Vinay Deolalikar started circulating a startling paper that claims to have solved the preeminent open problem in computer science, known as P = NP. Er, more accurately ...

Solving a problem in polynomial time assumes that computers have faculties that the human brain has. Basically solving a math problem in polynomial time means that computers can quickly check for the ...