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?

A paper that leaked onto the Web late last week claims to have solved one of the great modern problems in mathematics and computer science. Vinay Deolalikar, a principal research scientist at HP labs, ...

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 ...

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 ...

1. The P v. NP problem asks whether all problems whose solutions can be verified in some time can also be solved in a comparable length of time. What is this length of time called for the purpose of ...

A draft solution to the so-called “P versus NP” problem generated excitement in 2010 – will 2011 bring a correct proof? Vinay Deolalikar made waves in August when his draft solution to a mathematical ...

In computational complexity theory, P and NP are two classes of problems. P is the class of decision problems that a deterministic Turing machine can solve in polynomial time. In useful terms, any ...

A U.S.-based researcher has claimed to solve the sexiest problem in computer science. On the line are a million-dollar prize, a host of scientific breakthroughs and the secure cryptographic systems ...

Computers seem to exist in a world of perfect logic and absolute certainty. But much of what we do with computers--the fundamental security of the Internet, for example--is based not on anything we ...