NP-complete

In computational complexity theory, the complexity class NP-complete (abbreviated NP-C or NPC, with NP standing for nondeterministic polynomial time), is a class of problems having two properties Although any given solution to such a problem can be verified quickly, there is no known efficient way to locate a solution in the first place; indeed, the most notable characteristic of NP-complete problems is that no fast solution to them is known. Tha... more

In computational complexity theory, the complexity class NP-complete (abbreviated NP-C or NPC, with NP standing for nondeterministic polynomial time), is a class of problems having two properties Although any given solution to such a problem can be verified quickly, there is no known efficient way to locate a solution in the first place; indeed, the most notable characteristic of NP-complete problems is that no fast solution to them is known. That is, the time required to solve the problem using any currently known algorithm increases very quickly as the size of the problem grows. As a result, the time required to solve even moderately large versions of many of these problems easily reaches into the billions or trillions of years, using any amount of computing power available today. As a consequence, determining whether or not it is possible to solve these problems quickly is one of the principal unsolved problems in computer science today. While a method for computing the solutions... less