|
Valiant–Vazirani Theorem
The Valiant–Vazirani theorem is a theorem in computational complexity theory stating that if there is a polynomial time algorithm for Unambiguous-SAT, then NP = RP. It was proven by Leslie Valiant and Vijay Vazirani in their paper titled ''NP is as easy as detecting unique solutions'' published in 1986. The proof is based on the Mulmuley–Vazirani–Vazirani isolation lemma, which was subsequently used for a number of important applications in theoretical computer science. The Valiant–Vazirani theorem implies that the Boolean satisfiability problem, which is NP-complete, remains a computationally hard problem even if the input instances are promised to have at most one satisfying assignment. Proof outline Unambiguous-SAT is the promise problem of deciding whether a given Boolean formula that has at most one satisfying assignment is unsatisfiable or has exactly one satisfying assignment. In the first case, an algorithm for Unambiguous-SAT should reject, and in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computational Complexity Theory
In theoretical computer science and mathematics, computational complexity theory focuses on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and relating these classes to each other. A computational problem is a task solved by a computer. A computation problem is solvable by mechanical application of mathematical steps, such as an algorithm. A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if its solution requires significant resources, whatever the algorithm used. The theory formalizes this intuition, by introducing mathematical models of computation to study these problems and quantifying their computational complexity, i.e., the amount of resources needed to solve them, such as time and storage. Other measures of complexity are also used, such as the amount of communication (used in communication complexity), the number of gates in a circuit (used in circuit complexity) and the number of processors (used in parallel computing). One of the roles of computationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
P (complexity)
In computational complexity theory, P, also known as PTIME or DTIME(''n''O(1)), is a fundamental complexity class. It contains all decision problems that can be solved by a deterministic Turing machine using a polynomial amount of computation time, or polynomial time. Cobham's thesis holds that P is the class of computational problems that are "efficiently solvable" or " tractable". This is inexact: in practice, some problems not known to be in P have practical solutions, and some that are in P do not, but this is a useful rule of thumb. Definition A language ''L'' is in P if and only if there exists a deterministic Turing machine ''M'', such that * ''M'' runs for polynomial time on all inputs * For all ''x'' in ''L'', ''M'' outputs 1 * For all ''x'' not in ''L'', ''M'' outputs 0 P can also be viewed as a uniform family of boolean circuits. A language ''L'' is in P if and only if there exists a polynomial-time uniform family of boolean circuits \, such that * For all n \in \m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boolean Satisfiability Problem
In logic and computer science, the Boolean satisfiability problem (sometimes called propositional satisfiability problem and abbreviated SATISFIABILITY, SAT or B-SAT) is the problem of determining if there exists an interpretation that satisfies a given Boolean formula. In other words, it asks whether the variables of a given Boolean formula can be consistently replaced by the values TRUE or FALSE in such a way that the formula evaluates to TRUE. If this is the case, the formula is called ''satisfiable''. On the other hand, if no such assignment exists, the function expressed by the formula is FALSE for all possible variable assignments and the formula is ''unsatisfiable''. For example, the formula "''a'' AND NOT ''b''" is satisfiable because one can find the values ''a'' = TRUE and ''b'' = FALSE, which make (''a'' AND NOT ''b'') = TRUE. In contrast, "''a'' AND NOT ''a''" is unsatisfiable. SAT is the first problem that was proved to be NP-complete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NP (complexity)
In computational complexity theory, NP (nondeterministic polynomial time) is a complexity class used to classify decision problems. NP is the set of decision problems for which the problem instances, where the answer is "yes", have proofs verifiable in polynomial time by a deterministic Turing machine, or alternatively the set of problems that can be solved in polynomial time by a nondeterministic Turing machine.''Polynomial time'' refers to how quickly the number of operations needed by an algorithm, relative to the size of the problem, grows. It is therefore a measure of efficiency of an algorithm. An equivalent definition of NP is the set of decision problems ''solvable'' in polynomial time by a nondeterministic Turing machine. This definition is the basis for the abbreviation NP; " nondeterministic, polynomial time". These two definitions are equivalent because the algorithm based on the Turing machine consists of two phases, the first of which consists of a guess abou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RP (complexity)
In computational complexity theory, randomized polynomial time (RP) is the complexity class of problems for which a probabilistic Turing machine exists with these properties: * It always runs in polynomial time in the input size * If the correct answer is NO, it always returns NO * If the correct answer is YES, then it returns YES with probability at least 1/2 (otherwise, it returns NO). In other words, the algorithm is allowed to flip a truly random coin while it is running. The only case in which the algorithm can return YES is if the actual answer is YES; therefore if the algorithm terminates and produces YES, then the correct answer is definitely YES; however, the algorithm can terminate with NO ''regardless'' of the actual answer. That is, if the algorithm returns NO, it might be wrong. Some authors call this class R, although this name is more commonly used for the class of recursive languages. If the correct answer is YES and the algorithm is run ''n'' times with the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leslie Valiant
Leslie Gabriel Valiant (born 28 March 1949) is a British American computer scientist and computational theorist. He was born to a chemical engineer father and a translator mother. He is currently the T. Jefferson Coolidge Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University. Valiant was awarded the Turing Award in 2010, having been described by the A.C.M. as a heroic figure in theoretical computer science and a role model for his courage and creativity in addressing some of the deepest unsolved problems in science; in particular for his "striking combination of depth and breadth". Education Valiant was educated at King's College, Cambridge, Imperial College London, and the University of Warwick where he received a PhD in computer science in 1974. Research and career Valiant is world-renowned for his work in theoretical computer science. Among his many contributions to complexity theory, he introduced the notion of #P-completeness ("sharp-P complet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vijay Vazirani
Vijay Virkumar Vazirani ( hi, विजय वीरकुमार वज़ीरानी; b. 1957) is an Indian American distinguished professor of computer science in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Education and career Vazirani first majored in electrical engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi but in his second year he transferred to MIT and received his bachelor's degree in computer science from MIT in 1979 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1983. His dissertation, ''Maximum Matchings without Blossoms'', was supervised by Manuel Blum. After postdoctoral research with Michael O. Rabin and Leslie Valiant at Harvard University, he joined the faculty at Cornell University in 1984. He moved to the IIT Delhi as a full professor in 1990, and moved again to the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1995. He was also a McKay Visiting Professor at the University of California, Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isolation Lemma
In theoretical computer science, the term isolation lemma (or isolating lemma) refers to randomized algorithms that reduce the number of solutions to a problem to one, should a solution exist. This is achieved by constructing random constraints such that, with non-negligible probability, exactly one solution satisfies these additional constraints if the solution space is not empty. Isolation lemmas have important applications in computer science, such as the Valiant–Vazirani theorem and Toda's theorem in computational complexity theory. The first isolation lemma was introduced by , albeit not under that name. Their isolation lemma chooses a random number of random hyperplanes, and has the property that, with non-negligible probability, the intersection of any fixed non-empty solution space with the chosen hyperplanes contains exactly one element. This suffices to show the Valiant–Vazirani theorem: there exists a randomized polynomial-time reduction from the Boolean satisfiabilit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theoretical Computer Science
Theoretical computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, lambda calculus, and type theory. It is difficult to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. The Association for Computing Machinery, ACM's ACM SIGACT, Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) provides the following description: History While logical inference and mathematical proof had existed previously, in 1931 Kurt Gödel proved with his incompleteness theorem that there are fundamental limitations on what statements could be proved or disproved. Information theory was added to the field with a 1948 mathematical theory of communication by Claude Shannon. In the same decade, Donald Hebb introduced a mathematical model of Hebbian learning, learning in the brain. With mounting biological data supporting this hypothesis with some modification, the fields of n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NP-complete
In computational complexity theory, a problem is NP-complete when: # it is a problem for which the correctness of each solution can be verified quickly (namely, in polynomial time) and a brute-force search algorithm can find a solution by trying all possible solutions. # the problem can be used to simulate every other problem for which we can verify quickly that a solution is correct. In this sense, NP-complete problems are the hardest of the problems to which solutions can be verified quickly. If we could find solutions of some NP-complete problem quickly, we could quickly find the solutions of every other problem to which a given solution can be easily verified. The name "NP-complete" is short for "nondeterministic polynomial-time complete". In this name, "nondeterministic" refers to nondeterministic Turing machines, a way of mathematically formalizing the idea of a brute-force search algorithm. Polynomial time refers to an amount of time that is considered "quick" for a de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Promise Problem
In computational complexity theory, a promise problem is a generalization of a decision problem where the input is promised to belong to a particular subset of all possible inputs. Unlike decision problems, the ''yes'' instances (the inputs for which an algorithm must return ''yes'') and ''no'' instances do not exhaust the set of all inputs. Intuitively, the algorithm has been ''promised'' that the input does indeed belong to set of ''yes'' instances or ''no'' instances. There may be inputs which are neither ''yes'' nor ''no''. If such an input is given to an algorithm for solving a promise problem, the algorithm is allowed to output anything, and may even not halt. Formal definition A decision problem can be associated with a language L \subseteq \^*, where the problem is to accept all inputs in L and reject all inputs not in L. For a promise problem, there are two languages, L_ and L_, which must be disjoint, which means L_ \cap L_ = \varnothing, such that all the inputs in L_ a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nondeterministic Turing Machine
In theoretical computer science, a nondeterministic Turing machine (NTM) is a theoretical model of computation whose governing rules specify more than one possible action when in some given situations. That is, an NTM's next state is ''not'' completely determined by its action and the current symbol it sees, unlike a deterministic Turing machine. NTMs are sometimes used in thought experiments to examine the abilities and limits of computers. One of the most important open problems in theoretical computer science is the P versus NP problem, which (among other equivalent formulations) concerns the question of how difficult it is to simulate nondeterministic computation with a deterministic computer. Background In essence, a Turing machine is imagined to be a simple computer that reads and writes symbols one at a time on an endless tape by strictly following a set of rules. It determines what action it should perform next according to its internal ''state'' and ''what symbol it curr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
