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Co-NP-complete
In complexity theory, computational problems that are co-NP-complete are those that are the hardest problems in co-NP, in the sense that any problem in co-NP can be reformulated as a special case of any co-NP-complete problem with only polynomial overhead. If P is different from co-NP, then all of the co-NP-complete problems are not solvable in polynomial time. If there exists a way to solve a co-NP-complete problem quickly, then that algorithm can be used to solve all co-NP problems quickly. Each co-NP-complete problem is the complement of an NP-complete problem. There are some problems in both NP and co-NP, for example all problems in P or integer factorization. However, it is not known if the sets are equal, although inequality is thought more likely. See co-NP and NP-complete for more details. Fortune showed in 1979 that if any sparse language is co-NP-complete (or even just co-NP-hard), then , a critical foundation for Mahaney's theorem. Formal definition A decisio ... [...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 explores the relationships between these classifications. 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 logic gate, gates in a circuit (used in circuit complexity) and the number of processors (used in parallel computing). O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Co-NP
In computational complexity theory, co-NP is a complexity class. A decision problem X is a member of co-NP if and only if its complement is in the complexity class NP. The class can be defined as follows: a decision problem is in co-NP if and only if for every ''no''-instance we have a polynomial-length " certificate" and there is a polynomial-time algorithm that can be used to verify any purported certificate. That is, co-NP is the set of decision problems where there exists a polynomial and a polynomial-time bounded Turing machine ''M'' such that for every instance ''x'', ''x'' is a ''no''-instance if and only if: for some possible certificate ''c'' of length bounded by , the Turing machine ''M'' accepts the pair . Complementary problems While an NP problem asks whether a given instance is a ''yes''-instance, its ''complement'' asks whether an instance is a ''no''-instance, which means the complement is in co-NP. Any ''yes''-instance for the original NP problem becomes a '' ... [...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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Complement (complexity)
In computational complexity theory, the complement of a decision problem is the decision problem resulting from reversing the ''yes'' and ''no'' answers. Equivalently, if we define decision problems as sets of finite strings, then the complement of this set over some fixed domain is its complement problem. For example, one important problem is whether a number is a prime number. Its complement is to determine whether a number is a composite number (a number which is not prime). Here the domain of the complement is the set of all integers exceeding one. There is a Turing reduction from every problem to its complement problem. The complement operation is an involution, meaning it "undoes itself", or the complement of the complement is the original problem. One can generalize this to the complement of a complexity class, called the complement class, which is the set of complements of every problem in the class. If a class is called C, its complement is conventionally labelled co-C. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NP-complete
In computational complexity theory, NP-complete problems are the hardest of the problems to which ''solutions'' can be verified ''quickly''. Somewhat more precisely, a problem is NP-complete when: # It is a decision problem, meaning that for any input to the problem, the output is either "yes" or "no". # When the answer is "yes", this can be demonstrated through the existence of a short (polynomial length) ''solution''. # 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. Hence, 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, ... [...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 (mathematics), set of decision problems for which the Computational complexity theory#Problem instances, problem instances, where the answer is "yes", have mathematical proof, 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. * NP is the set of decision problems ''solvable'' in polynomial time by a nondeterministic Turing machine. * NP is the set of decision problems ''verifiable'' in polynomial time by a deterministic Turing machine. The first definition is the basis for the abbreviation NP; "Nondeterministic alg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Integer Factorization
In mathematics, integer factorization is the decomposition of a positive integer into a product of integers. Every positive integer greater than 1 is either the product of two or more integer factors greater than 1, in which case it is a composite number, or it is not, in which case it is a prime number. For example, is a composite number because , but is a prime number because it cannot be decomposed in this way. If one of the factors is composite, it can in turn be written as a product of smaller factors, for example . Continuing this process until every factor is prime is called prime factorization; the result is always unique up to the order of the factors by the prime factorization theorem. To factorize a small integer using mental or pen-and-paper arithmetic, the simplest method is trial division: checking if the number is divisible by prime numbers , , , and so on, up to the square root of . For larger numbers, especially when using a computer, various more sophis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sparse Language
In computational complexity theory, a sparse language is a formal language (a set of strings) such that the complexity function, counting the number of strings of length ''n'' in the language, is bounded by a polynomial function of ''n''. They are used primarily in the study of the relationship of the complexity class NP with other classes. The complexity class of all sparse languages is called SPARSE. Sparse languages are called ''sparse'' because there are a total of 2''n'' strings of length ''n'', and if a language only contains polynomially many of these, then the proportion of strings of length ''n'' that it contains rapidly goes to zero as ''n'' grows. All unary languages are sparse. An example of a nontrivial sparse language is the set of binary strings containing exactly ''k'' 1 bits for some fixed ''k''; for each ''n'', there are only \binom strings in the language, which is bounded by ''n''''k''. Relationships to other complexity classes * SPARSE contains TALLY, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
P = NP Problem
The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in theoretical computer science. Informally, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified can also be quickly solved. Here, "quickly" means an algorithm exists that solves the task and runs in polynomial time (as opposed to, say, exponential time), meaning the task completion time is bounded above by a polynomial function on the size of the input to the algorithm. The general class of questions that some algorithm can answer in polynomial time is " P" or "class P". For some questions, there is no known way to find an answer quickly, but if provided with an answer, it can be verified quickly. The class of questions where an answer can be ''verified'' in polynomial time is "NP", standing for "nondeterministic polynomial time".A nondeterministic Turing machine can move to a state that is not determined by the previous state. Such a machine could solve an NP problem in polynomial time by falling into the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mahaney's Theorem
Mahaney's theorem is a theorem in computational complexity theory proven by Stephen Mahaney that states that if any sparse language is NP-complete, then P = NP. Also, if any sparse language is NP-complete with respect to Turing reductions, then the polynomial-time hierarchy collapses to \Delta^P_2. Mahaney's argument does not actually require the sparse language to be in NP, so there is a sparse NP-hard In computational complexity theory, a computational problem ''H'' is called NP-hard if, for every problem ''L'' which can be solved in non-deterministic polynomial-time, there is a polynomial-time reduction from ''L'' to ''H''. That is, assumi ... set if and only if P = NP. This is because the existence of an NP-hard sparse set implies the existence of an NP-complete sparse set. References {{compsci-stub Theorems in computational complexity theory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decision Problem
In computability theory and computational complexity theory, a decision problem is a computational problem that can be posed as a yes–no question on a set of input values. An example of a decision problem is deciding whether a given natural number is prime. Another example is the problem, "given two numbers ''x'' and ''y'', does ''x'' evenly divide ''y''?" A decision procedure for a decision problem is an algorithmic method that answers the yes-no question on all inputs, and a decision problem is called decidable if there is a decision procedure for it. For example, the decision problem "given two numbers ''x'' and ''y'', does ''x'' evenly divide ''y''?" is decidable since there is a decision procedure called long division that gives the steps for determining whether ''x'' evenly divides ''y'' and the correct answer, ''YES'' or ''NO'', accordingly. Some of the most important problems in mathematics are undecidable, e.g. the halting problem. The field of computational ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polynomial-time Many-one Reduction
In computational complexity theory, a polynomial-time reduction is a method for solving one problem using another. One shows that if a hypothetical subroutine solving the second problem exists, then the first problem can be solved by transforming or reducing it to inputs for the second problem and calling the subroutine one or more times. If both the time required to transform the first problem to the second, and the number of times the subroutine is called is polynomial, then the first problem is polynomial-time reducible to the second. A polynomial-time reduction proves that the first problem is no more difficult than the second one, because whenever an efficient algorithm exists for the second problem, one exists for the first problem as well. By contraposition, if no efficient algorithm exists for the first problem, none exists for the second either. Polynomial-time reductions are frequently used in complexity theory for defining both complexity classes and complete problems ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
