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The Nature of Computation

Article · January 2011

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233212.001.0001

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The Nature of Computation

Cristopher Moore
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
and
Santa Fe Institute

Stephan Mertens
Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg
and
Santa Fe Institute

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Contents

Figure Credits

Preface xv

1 Prologue 1
1.1 Crossing Bridges 1
1.2 Intractable Itineraries 5
1.3 Playing Chess With God 8
1.4 What Lies Ahead 10
Problems 11
Notes 13

2 The Basics 15
2.1 Problems and Solutions 15
2.2 Time, Space, and Scaling 18
2.3 Intrinsic Complexity 23
2.4 The Importance of Being Polynomial 25
2.5 Tractability and Mathematical Insight 29
Problems 30
Notes 35

3 Insights and Algorithms 41

3.1 Recursion 42
3.2 Divide and Conquer 43
3.3 Dynamic Programming 53
3.4 Getting There From Here 59
3.5 When Greed is Good 64
3.6 Finding a Better Flow 68
3.7 Flows, Cuts, and Duality 71
3.8 Transformations and Reductions 74
Problems 76
Notes 89

vii
viii CONTENTS

4 Needles in a Haystack: the Class NP 95
4.1 Needles and Haystacks 96
4.2 A Tour of NP 97
4.3 Search, Existence, and Nondeterminism 109
4.4 Knots and Primes 115
Problems 121
Notes 125

5 Who is the Hardest One of All? NP-Completeness 127

5.1 When One Problem Captures Them All 128
5.2 Circuits and Formulas 129
5.3 D esigning Reductions 133
5.4 Completeness as a Surprise 145
5.5 The Boundary Between Easy and Hard 153
5.6 Finally, Hamiltonian Path 160
Problems 163
Notes 168

6 The Deep Question: P vs. NP 173
6.1 What if P -=NP?
- 174
6.2 Upper Bounds are Easy, Lower Bounds Are Hard 181
6.3 Diagonalization and the Time Hierarchy 184
6.4 Possible Worlds 187
6.5 Natural Proofs 191
6.6 Problems in the Gap 196
6.7 Nonconstructive Proofs 199
6.8 The Road Ahead 210
Problems 211
Notes 218

7 The Grand Unified Theory of Computation 223

7.1 Babbage's Vision and Hilbert's Dream 224
7.2 Universality and Undecidability 230
7.3 Building Blocks: Recursive Functions 240
7.4 Form is Function: the 2.-Calculus 249
7.5 Turing's Applied Philosophy 258
7.6 Computation Everywhere 264
Problems 284
Notes 290

8 Memory, Paths, and Garnes 301

8.1 Welcome to the State Space 302
8.2 Show Me The Way 306
8.3 L and NL-Completeness 310
 CONTENTS ix

8.4 Middle-First Search and Nondeterministic Space 314

8.5 You Can't Get There From Here 317
8.6 PSPACE, Garnes, and Quantified SAT 319
8.7 Garnes People Play 328
8.8 Symmetric Space 339
Problems 341
Notes 347

9 Optimization and Approximation 351

9.1 Three Flavors of Optimization 352
9.2 Approximations 355
9.3 Inapproximability 364
9.4 Jewels and Facets: Linear Programming 370
9.5 Through the Looking-Glass: Duality 382
9.6 Solving by Balloon: Interior Point Methods 387
9.7 Hunting with Eggshells 392
9.8 Algorithmic Cubism 402
9.9 Trees, Tours, and Polytopes 409
9.10 Solving Hard Problems in Practice 414
Problems 427
Notes 442

10 Randomized Algorithms 451

10.1 Foiling the Adversary 452
10.2 The Smallest Cut 454
10.3 The Satisfied Drunkard: Wa1kSAT 457
10.4 Solving in Heaven, Projecting to Earth 460
10.5 Garnes Against the Adversary 465
10.6 Fingerprints, Hash Functions, and Uniqueness 472
10.7 The Roots of Identity 479
10.8 Primality 482
10.9 Randomized Complexity Classes 488
Problems 491
Notes 502

11 Interaction and Pseudorandomness 507

11.1 The Tale of Arthur and Merlin 508
11.2 The Fable of the Chess Master 521
11.3 Probabilistically Checkable Proofs 526
11.4 Pseudorandom Generators and Derandomization 540
Problems 553
Notes 560
x CONTENTS

12 Random Walks and Rapid Mixing 563

12.1 A Random Walk in Physics 564
12.2 The Approach to Equilibrium 568
12.3 Equilibrium Indicators 573
12.4 Coupling 576
12.5 Coloring a Graph, Randomly 579
12.6 Burying Ancient History: Coupling from the Past 586
12.7 The Spectral Gap 602
12.8 Flows of Probability: Conductance 606
12.9 Expanders 612
12.10 Mixing in Time and Space 623
Problems 626
Notes 643

13 Counting, Sampling, and Statistical Physics 651

13.1 Spanning Trees and the Determinant 653
13.2 Perfect Matchings and the Permanent 658
13.3 The Complexity of Counting 662
13.4 From Counting to Sampling, and Back 668
13.5 Random Matchings and Approximating the Permanent 674
13.6 Planar Graphs and Asymptotics an Lattices 683
13.7 Solving the Ising Model 693
Problems 703
Notes 718

14 When Formulas Freeze: Phase Transitions in Computation 723

14.1 Experiments and Conjectures 724
14.2 Random Graphs, Giant Components, and Cores 730
14.3 Equations of Motion: Algorithmic Lower Bounds 742
14.4 Magic Moments 748
14.5 The Easiest Hard Problem 759
14.6 Message Passing 768
14.7 Survey Propagation and the Geometry of Solutions 783
14.8 Frozen Variables and Hardness 793
Problems 796
Notes 810

15 Quantum Computation 819

15.1 Particles, Waves, and Amplitudes 820
15.2 States and Operators 823
15.3 Spooky Action at a Distance 833
15.4 Algorithmic Interference 841
15.5 Cryptography and Shor's Algorithm 848
15.6 Graph Isomorphism and the Hidden Subgroup Problem 862
 CONTENTS )d

15.7 Quantum Haystacks: Grover's Algorithm 869

15.8 Quantum Walks and Scattering 876
Problems 888
Notes 902

A Mathematical Tools 911

A.1 The Story of 0 911
A.2 Approximations and Inequalities 914
A.3 Chance and Necessity 917
A.4 Dice and Drunkards 923
A.5 Concentration Inequalities 927
A.6 Asymptotic Integrals 931
A.7 Groups, Rings, and Fields 933
Problems 939

References 945

Index 974

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