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thatoneengineer • yesterday at 11:23 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

Assuming P != NP (and that this NP != EXP proof holds up), what's the next most "natural" candidate for how fast NP must grow? This paper appears to show Omega(2^(n/sqrt(log(n))) with a couple additional fudge factors which would be a very disappointing answer.


Replies

jibalt • today at 2:11 AM

This is not a proof that NP != EXP. NP is poly time reduceable to 3SAT + 3SAT is sub-exponential does not imply that NP is sub-exponential -- the cost of the reduction may be enough to push the conjunction from sub-exponential to exponential.

Note https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50253213 which explains it better.

zeroonetwothree • yesterday at 11:44 PM

Definitely puts some weight on the P=NP side of the scale!