I find the following result to be really interesting but
can't quite say why:
(For this exposition ≤m means poly-m-reduction)
Let SAT17 be the set of formulas such that
the number of satisfying assignments is a multiple of 17.
If SAT17 ≤m S, S sparse, then SAT17 ∈ P.
This is one of those results where the proof in the literature
is hard because they prove something
far more powerful (btt reductions- and more).
Hence I have my own exposition that I made for my
class
here.
I presented it in class recently and the students questioned
why it was interesting. I can usually answer questions
like this (even about such things as the Polynomial VDW
theorem) but this one is harder to say.
I DO find it interesting (not just the proof, but the result)
but can't quite say why.
SO, here is my challenge: either tell me a reason the
result is interesting OR tell me a result that YOU
find interesting but can't quite say why.
For those of us who are not in the know, can you please say why mod 17, rather than some other prime? Is it suspected this result is true modulo other primes or is 17 really special?
From context, interesting == worthy of attention / spending time going over in class, perhaps? As for further reasoning, that's probably the question, yes? :)
I'm actually not entirely sure why I find P!=NP? interesting, since if the answer is "TRUE", it's only a proof for a very intuitive claim, and if the answer is "FALSE", I'm pretty sure the polynom would be so big that the NP-hard problems would still remain infeasible.
I think the main reason I find it interesting is just that it sounds so intutively obvious, but still no one has been able to prove it. Okay, also P!=NP is a big assumption that the entire complexity field is built on, so it's interesting to find out if its really true, but still, I'm not sure why it's interesting in the "if someone who doesn't know anything about computer science asked me why it's interesting I could explain" kind of way.
hi,dear all,sorry to post an irrelevant question here. I wonder who can kindly give me some links of the "theory/algo qualifying exams" from univerisitys such as MIT,Princeton,Berkeley,CMU,Stanfordand Harvard(not limited to these schools). Many thanks!
All universities publish their qualifying examinations (if they have them) in a single online repository; the UQED (University Qualifying Exam Depository). I've embedded a direct link as follows:
Sorry,I can't find that UQED. Thanks anyway. Any other students or professors in these universities can give me a hand on this? I found that UIUC,Gatech,Wisconsin had put there qualifying exams on their theory group web,but seems others did not:-(