NP-Complete Problems.pptVIP

NP-Complete Problems Polynomial time vs exponential time Polynomial O(nk), where n is the input size (e.g., number of nodes in a graph, the length of strings , etc) of our problem and k is a constant (e.g., k=1, 2, 3, etc). Exponential time: 2n or nn. n= 2, 10, 20, 30 2n: 4 1024 1 million 1000 million Suppose our computer can solve a problem of size k (i.e., compute 2k operations) in a hour/week/month. If the new computer is 1024 times faster than ours, then the new computer can solve the problem of size k+10 in the same time. The improvement is very little. Hardware improvement has little use for solving problems that require exponential running time. Exponential running time is considered as “not efficient”. Story All algorithms we have studied so far are polynomial time algorithms. Facts: people have not yet found any polynomial time algorithms for some famous problems, (e.g., Hamilton Circuit, longest simple path, Steiner trees). Question: Do there exist polynomial time algorithms for those famous problems？ Answer: No body knows. Story Research topic: Prove that polynomial time algorithms do not exist for those famous problems, e.g., Hamilton circuit problem. You can get Turing award if you can give the proof. In order to answer the above question, people define two classes of problems, P class and NP class. To answer if P?NP, a rich area, NP-completeness theory is developed. Class P and Class NP Class P contains those problems that are solvable in polynomial time. They are problems that can be solved in O(nk) time, where n is the input size and k is a constant. Class NP consists of those problem that are verifiable in polynomial time. What we mean here is that if we were somehow given a solution, then we can verify that the solution is correct in time polynomial in the input size to the problem. Example: Hamilton Circuit: given an order of the n distinct vertices (v1, v