Kevin Buzzard explains one of the biggest unsolved problems in theoretical computer science – the P vs NP problem.
Today’s computers are lightning-fast. But sometimes we want to make sure that they can’t solve a particular task quickly (perhaps for security purposes). This issue lies at the heart of the P vs NP problem, one of the most famous conundrums in computer science, which Kevin Buzzard will explore in this Discourse. Can every problem whose solution is quickly verifiable by a computer, also be quickly solved by a computer?
Kevin Buzzard is a British mathematician and currently a Professor of Pure Mathematics at Imperial College London. He specialises in algebraic number theory.
