A diagram showing the relevant complexity classes in the P vs NP problem. “P” problems are solvable in polynomial time; “NP” problems might be solvable in polynomial time, and are checkable in ...

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?

Lance Fortnow on the current status and future outlook of solving the P-NP problem.

Has the biggest question in computer science been solved? On 6 August, Vinay Deolalikar, a mathematician at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, California, sent out draft copies of a paper titled ...

This awkward but eager work introduces readers to one of the most complicated problems in mathematics. P-type problems have a single solution and can be solved easily by computer, whereas NP, or ...

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 ...