

Holographic Algorithms: New family of algorithms probes the boundary between easy and hard problems - amichail
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/56452

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amichail
"What prompts me to write on this theme is a new and wholly unexpected family
of algorithms that provide efficient methods for several problems that
previously had only brute-force solutions. The algorithms were invented by
Leslie G. Valiant of Harvard University, with extensive further contributions
by Jin-Yi Cai of the University of Wisconsin. Valiant named the methods
"holographic algorithms," but he also refers to them as "accidental
algorithms," emphasizing their capricious, rabbit-from-the-hat quality; they
seem to pluck answers from a tangle of unlikely coincidences and
cancellations. I am reminded of the famous Sidney Harris cartoon in which a
long series of equations on a blackboard hinges on the notation "Then a
miracle occurs."

