Mathematics News: P ≠ NP

So I’m getting seriously off topic here, but if this verified, this is big news. There are murmurs around the internet that a proof has been found for the P versus NP problem in computer science.

Apparently, P ≠ NP.

This is one of the millennium prize problems so we are dealing with seriously ground breaking stuff. (Here is a pretty basic explanation of the issue.)

And this time it hasn’t been solved by some eccentric Russian recluse (who refused the $1 million prize money) but by a humble HP employee, Vinay Deolalikar.

I imagine that he got some legal advice before sending around the proof because he says in the cover letter: “This work was pursued independently of my duties as a HP Labs researcher...” I hope this is right, because this is definitely not copyright that you want to lose to your employer.

We’ll find out pretty soon whether the proof is verified but in the mean time, some people aren’t convinced.


[UPDATE: The irony of this proof has just occurred to me; whilst it took quite some time for this proof to be computed it may be verified relatively quickly: QED.]