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What Are P, NP, NP-complete, and NP-hard? P

P refers to problems that can be solved in polynomial time by a regular computer. NP includes problems that may take exponential time on a regular computer but can be solved in polynomial time on a nondeterministic computer. It is unknown whether P equals NP. NP-hard problems are at least as hard as any problem in NP, as any NP problem can be reduced to an NP-hard problem in polynomial time. NP-complete problems are NP and NP-hard, meaning they are the hardest problems in NP.

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50 views1 page

What Are P, NP, NP-complete, and NP-hard? P

P refers to problems that can be solved in polynomial time by a regular computer. NP includes problems that may take exponential time on a regular computer but can be solved in polynomial time on a nondeterministic computer. It is unknown whether P equals NP. NP-hard problems are at least as hard as any problem in NP, as any NP problem can be reduced to an NP-hard problem in polynomial time. NP-complete problems are NP and NP-hard, meaning they are the hardest problems in NP.

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venkat
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What are P, NP, NP-complete, and NP-hard?

P:
The algorithm runs in polynomial time and the problem it solves in class P.
NP:
There are a lot of programs that dont run in polynomial time on a regular computer, but do run
in polynomial time on a nondeterministic Turing machine. These programs solve problems
in NP, which stands for nondeterministic polynomial time. A nondeterministic Turing machine
can do everything as a regular computer and more. This means all problems in P are also in NP.
Some people think P = NP, which means any problem that can be verified in polynomial time,
can also be solved in polynomial time and vice versa. If they could prove this, it would be a
revolution computer science because people would be able to construct faster algorithms for a lot
of important problems.
NP-hard:
What does NP-hard mean? A lot of times you can solve a problem by reducing it to a different
problem. I can reduce Problem B to Problem A if, given a solution to Problem A, I can easily
construct a solution to Problem B. (In this case, "easily" means "in polynomial time.")
If a problem is NP-hard, this means I can reduce any problem in NP to that problem. This
means if I can solve that problem, I can easily solve any problem in NP. If we could solve an
NP-hard problem in polynomial time, this would prove P = NP.
NP-complete:
A problem is NP-complete if the problem is both NP-hard, and NP.

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