Talk:P versus NP problem

Gerhard J. Woeginger's list

The article says that "Gerhard J. Woeginger maintains a list that, as of 2018, contains 62 purported proofs of P = NP, 50..." Yet The list as of 2016 on [1] had as many as 116 in total and there has been no change to the list since. Limit-theorem (talk) 20:16, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

It is just a refinement: 62 + 50 + 1 + 2 = 115, with one of the listed proofs a valid proof that a certain strategy can't work. It would be worth trying to find out whether this project is permanently moribund, though. --JBL (talk) 16:50, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Someone should add that most Computer Scientists believe NP≠P in the introduction

I think there should be some mention of the general belief or consensus that NP≠P and that hard problems such as the traveling salesman problem are not easily solvable in deterministic polynomial time. This would be helpful for the general reader to get an overview of the current state of the concept in the introduction. ScientistBuilder (talk) 22:08, 13 October 2021 (UTC)ScientistBuilderScientistBuilder (talk) 22:08, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

This is already in the lede: " If it turns out that P ≠ NP, which is widely believed, it would mean..." LouScheffer (talk) 00:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Further reading new submission

I am trying to contribute in the section Further reading User JayBeeEll is undoing my submission. If i am doing something wrong can you please explain what is wrong so I can fix it.Padfgb (talk) 17:03, 26 January 2022 (UTC) Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Padfgb (talk • contribs) 13:17, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

The paper you are trying to add is obvious crankery, published in a fake journal. --JBL (talk) 15:36, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Gao Ming paper

Yes, it is only a pre-print, and he'll have to publish it in a journal, but I've skim read through Gao Ming's paper, and I'm not seeing the problem. I think we should refer to it until such time as anyone finds a flaw in it. My edit was reverted by someone who didn't say why. What do others think? Dan88888 (talk) 16:12, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Lots of people publish "solutions" to famous open problems. For reasons of due weight, to include such an announcement in this article would require significant coverage in reliable, secondary sources, rather than a "skim read" by an individual Wikipedia editor. --JBL (talk) 16:47, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with JBL. There are hundreds of these crank papers out there. Trying to cover each one would overwhelm our article, and also violate the requirement of WP:FRINGE that we cover fringe material according to what mainstream sources say about it, not what the fringe material says about itself. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:24, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

But Dan8888 has skimmed it and doesn't see a problem! Why isn't that good enough? Personally I'm convinced N vs NP has now been solved. EEng 19:55, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Just set P=1? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:45, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I've learned more about Wikipedia this weekend, and now agree with the two comments above (but not with the ones below). Incidentally, my native Chinese speaking friend is convinced Gao Ming is a made-up name, which doesn't bode well for it being a successful attempt! Dan88888 (talk) 17:05, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I see it has got as far as being published with a peer review process https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-28073-3_41

https://saiconference.com/FICC2024/CallforPapers Dan88888 (talk) 16:29, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes sure: [2] [3]. --JBL (talk) 17:33, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Hey, I'm not claiming it is a good publisher. I've never heard of it before. However, the evidence you provided I see falls short of proving it is a not a good one.

Also, by way of comparison, the 2010 “proof” was quickly shot down on the internet, and this time, that hasn't happened. I would think, there would be people motivated to move in, particularly on a journal that was perceived as a bad one. ~~~~ Dan88888 (talk) 08:57, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

No, as a general rule people do not waste time debunking fake proofs published in fake journals, for obvious reasons. --JBL (talk) 18:28, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Strong claims require careful checking. Remember Wiles and Fermat's Last Theorem? He did not do a pre-print, but he presented the proof over several days of lectures to a group of other expert mathematicians, and they agreed he had solved it (rather stronger statement than a single person skimming a paper). But even so, a fatal bug was found in the peer review process, that took two years to fix using techniques that were not in the original proof. So we need to let the peer-review process play out. LouScheffer (talk) 04:26, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

But in the end Wiles was right after all, so all that checking and debugging turned out to be a waste of time. If everyone'd just believed him in the first place ('cause he is, after all, wicked smaht) then they could have spent those two years doing something useful like squaring the circle. EEng 06:06, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Please help publish the solution to p vs np

I'm not familiar with Wikipedia customs and rules. Yvovanderhoekgmailcom (talk) 20:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not publish papers or original research. When reliable secondary sources discuss a supposed solution we can report what those sources say. Meters (talk) 20:27, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

See WP:NOT, particularly WP:FORUM Meters (talk) 20:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

March 27

Anyone know why this page spiked in views according to this graph? Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) she/her 12:06, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Here are two guesses for the 14,000 accesses that day. One is that the page was mentioned in some popular newspaper or social media account, with a clickable link. Google news shows only one mention on 27 March (in this article on the Pythagorean Theorem), and it's not clickable. So I think social media is more likely. Another possibility is programs fetching the page, perhaps for a large enrollment computer science course, or perhaps just a bug that fetches the page over and over. I'm sure many other explanations are possible. LouScheffer (talk) 15:42, 28 November 2023 (UTC)