Linked Questions

230 votes
60 answers
96k views

Major unsolved problems in theoretical computer science?

Wikipedia only lists two problems under "unsolved problems in computer science": P = NP? The existence of one-way functions What are other major problems that should be added to this list? Rules: ...
37 votes
8 answers
3k views

Problems with big open complexity gaps

This question is about problems for which there is a big open complexity gap between known lower bound and upper bound, but not because of open problems on complexity classes themselves. To be more ...
Denis's user avatar
  • 8,473
32 votes
7 answers
10k views

Should we consider $\mathsf{P} \neq \mathsf{NP}$ a law of nature?

Many experts believe that the $\mathsf{P} \neq \mathsf{NP}$ conjecture is true and use it in their results. My concern is that the complexity strongly depends on the $\mathsf{P} \neq \mathsf{NP}$ ...
vb le's user avatar
  • 4,828
28 votes
5 answers
6k views

Is it a rule that discrete problems are NP-hard and continuous problems are not?

In my computer science education, I increasingly notice that most discrete problems are NP-complete (at least), whereas optimizing continuous problems is almost always easily achievable, usually ...
alekdimi's user avatar
  • 391
33 votes
6 answers
3k views

Why are so few natural candidates for NP-intermediate status?

It is well known by Ladner's Theorem that if ${\mathsf P}\neq \mathsf {NP}$, then there exist infinitely many $\mathsf {NP}$-intermediate ($\mathsf{NPI}$) problems. There are also natural candidates ...
Andras Farago's user avatar
40 votes
2 answers
6k views

Sum-of-square-roots-hard problems?

The sum of square roots problem asks, given two sequences $a_1, a_2, \dots, a_n$ and $b_1, b_2, \dots, b_n$ of positive integers, whether the sum $\sum_i \sqrt{a_i}$ less than, equal to, or greater ...
Jeffε's user avatar
  • 22.9k
30 votes
2 answers
2k views

Hierarchies in NP (under the assumption that P != NP)

Assuming that P != NP, I believe it has been shown that there are problems which are not in P and not NP-Complete. Graph Isomorphism is conjectured to be such a problem. Is there any evidence of more ...
Aryabhata's user avatar
  • 1,855
28 votes
3 answers
1k views

Natural problems in $NP \cap coNP$ not in $UP \cap coUP$?

Are there any natural problems in $NP \cap coNP$ that are not (known to be/thought to be) in $UP \cap coUP$? Obviously the big one everyone knows about in $NP \cap coNP$ is the decision version of ...
Joshua Grochow's user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
965 views

Why are NPI problems not all of the same complexity?

How does one look at a problem and reason that it is likely NP-Intermediate as opposed to NP-Complete? It is often pretty simple to look at a problem and tell whether it is likely NP-Complete or not ...
Jesse Stern's user avatar
43 votes
3 answers
3k views

Consequences of a quasi-polynomial time algorithm for the graph isomorphism problem

The Graph Isomorphism problem (GI) is arguably the best known candidate for an NP-intermediate problem. The best known algorithm is sub-exponential algorithm with run-time $2^{O(\sqrt{n \log n})}$. ...
Mohammad Al-Turkistany's user avatar
13 votes
4 answers
849 views

Reference for fundamental theorem on tree rotations

Two binary search trees are said to be linearly equivalent when they agree in their in-order traversals. The following theorem explains why tree rotations are so fundamental: Let A and B be binary ...
Per Vognsen's user avatar
  • 2,161
14 votes
3 answers
948 views

Is the 3-sphere recognition problem NP-complete?

It is known that determining whether or not a given triangulated 3-manifold is a 3-sphere is in NP, via work by Saul Schleimer in 2004: "Sphere recognition lies in NP" arXiv:math/0407047v1 [math.GT]. ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

Algorithm for finding a 3-cycle cover

Given: An undirected, unweighted graph Looking for: A disjoint vertex cycle cover where every cycle has at least 3 edges Is there any algorithm that solves this problem, possibly with some ...
Ben Bezos's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
887 views

"Any" Subset Sum. Is it hard?

Here is a variant of the classic partition problem: Given a list of integers can it be partitioned into $S_1$, $S_2$, and $S_3$, with $S_1$ and $S_2$ nonempty, so the sum of elements in $S_1$ equals ...
Whosyourjay's user avatar
16 votes
1 answer
540 views

Natural candidates for the hierarchy inside NPI

Let's assume that $\mathsf{P} \neq \mathsf{NP}$. $\mathsf{NPI}$ is the class of problems in $\mathsf{NP}$ which are neither in $\mathsf{P}$ nor in $\mathsf{NP}$-hard. You can find a list of problems ...
Mohammad Al-Turkistany's user avatar

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