

Q&A on P≠NP Paper for Non-Mathematicians - mikexstudios
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~stansife/pnp.html

======
powrtoch
Great introduction for anyone (such as myself) who found themselves quickly
lost in most of the other posted discussions. Not only do you get a general
idea of the proof, you feel better equipped to look back over those higher-
level discussions.

------
mikexstudios
This was originally posted on an undergrad mailing list at Tech. It helped me
understand the the P≠NP paper better, so I asked the author to make a page for
it.

~~~
bhickey
It's a rather small world. Without glancing at the URL, I forwarded the link
to a friend who turns out to be the author's brother!

------
patrickaljord
> For example, the problem of determining whether a graph has a Hamiltonian
> cycle is in NP; given a path in the graph, it is fast to verify whether or
> not it is a Hamiltonian cycle.

Submitter is a bit out of touch with reality if he thinks "Non-Mathematicians"
will get that example. Nice read overall though.

~~~
Eliezer
People who are good at math, but not mathematicians, will get it. There is
very little hope of explaining P and NP to people who feel nervous in the
presence of math and don't want to hear what a "polynomial" is.

~~~
patrickaljord
Or a Hamiltonian cycle...

~~~
studer
If you read the entire section from the beginning, you'll notice that you
don't really need to know what a Hamiltonian cycle is to understand the
explanation. A made-up property would have worked equally well.

