JAMES F. KELLY DISTINGUISHED

SeriesLECTUREFriday, April 192:30 - 3:30 PM 113 IST (Cybertorium)

Richard J. Lipton Professor and Frederick G. Storey Chair in ComputingGeorgia Tech | School of Computer Science

2013

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

In this talk I will give some history of the great P vs NP question. I will also discuss the problem’s current status, some current claims about it, and talk about its future. The talk should be fun for those who are not experts, and also fun for those who are experts (though with the P=NP question, it is unclear who is really an “expert,” since we know so little).

Finally, I will outline an approach to the question that I have been actively pursing for several years now. The end is not in sight, but progress appears possible.

Bio:

Dick Lipton got his Ph.D. from CMU in 1973 and then moved on to Yale. He left there after getting tenure and moved to Berkeley. In 1980, for various reasons (hint: 19 percent interest rates), he moved east to Princeton. He helped start the CS department there and left after twenty years. Since 2000, he has been the Storey Chaired Professor of Computing at Georgia Tech. He is an ACM Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is the founder and now co-editor with Ken Regan of a blog, Godel’s Lost Letter, on P vs NP and almost anything else that has a mathematical flavor.

The P vs NP Question: Past, Present, Future

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