Albion College
Mathematics and Computer Science
COLLOQUIUM
Random Hard Problems
Harold S. Connamacher

Assistant Professor

Mathematics and Computer Science

Albion College

If it is easy to verify the solution to a problem, is it easy to solve that problem? This is the famous P vs NP problem. There are other important open questions we can ask. Is a uniformly randomm instance of a hard to solve problem still hard to solve? Are there specific structures in the solution space to a problem that will prevent certain algorithm techniques from working? This talk explores what is currently known about these questions, and we will use the well-known problems 3-SAT and factoring as examples. The talk will also introduce some new work in defining a random problem model that has many of the properties of 3-SAT but for which we can prove behavior that we observe experimentally but not yet prove for 3-SAT.
3:10
All are welcome!
Palenske 227
September 30, 2010