Notes: Friday 21 March 2003

Schedule

• Monday, 24 March: Problem Set 6.
  Upcoming lab hours:
     Sunday, 23 March: 1-2:30 PM (Katie)
     Sunday, 23 March: 2-3:30 PM (Rachel)
  
• Monday, 31 March: Problem Set 8 team requests (see Notes 21 for details)

Notes

What is the difference between a tractable and intractable problem?

What does it mean for a problem to be NP-complete?

What are the characteristics of NP-complete problems?

How would you convince someone the smiley puzzle is NP-complete?

How would it impact medicine if you discovered a Θ(n⁷) procedure that solves the smiley puzzle?

How would it impact electronic commerce if you discovered a Θ(n⁷) procedure that solves the smiley puzzle?

How would it impact electronic commerce if you discovered a Θ(5ⁿ) procedure that solves the smiley puzzle?

Is the smiley puzzle harder than the Cracker Barrel Peg Board puzzle?

Links

P vs. NP, Clay Mathematics Institute, Millennium Prize Problem.
Minesweeper, Ian Stewart. (Paper attached is optional, not required reading.)
Phylogeny (CS201J Problem Set)

UVa group heads to Calif. for computer competition, Daily Progress, March 20, 2003.

	CS 200: Computer Science Department of Computer Science University of Virginia Circle Fractal by Ramsey Arnaoot and Qi Wang	cs200-staff@cs.virginia.edu Using these Materials