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New Work Suggests That P Is Not Equal To NP (arxiv.org)

Posted by msmash on from the this-changes-everything dept.

New submitter cccc828 writes: In a new paper Norbert Blum tackles the P=NP question and finds them to be not equal. While this is exciting news (for theoretical computer scientists at least), remember that there is a long list of findings pointing either way.

2 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"While this is exciting news" by dmgxmichael · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The expected answer means we will have cryptographic security available indefinitely. We may have to keep switching algorithms, but in principle there will always be an algorithm out there that can't be quickly bypassed. Evidence that P = NP (or one is a subset of the other) means all cryptography is doomed to fail.

  2. Re:"While this is exciting news" by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    or one is a subset of the other

    P is already known to be a subset of NP. The question is whether it is a proper subset (P != NP) or not (P = NP).

    Evidence that P = NP means all cryptography is doomed to fail.

    Exciting news is obviously not always good news.