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 ...

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 ...

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?

When the Clay Mathematics Institute put individual $1-million prize bounties on seven unsolved mathematical problems, they may have undervalued one entry—by a lot. If mathematicians were to resolve, ...

Complexity theory remains one of the great unsolved mathematical puzzles. Kenneth Regan is trying to figure it out. Kenneth Regan paused at lunch in New York to glance at incoming texts from top ...

"The P-NP problem is the most important open problem in computer science, if not all of mathematics. Simply stated, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly checked by computer can ...