P, NP, NP-Completeness

General Problems, Input Size and

Time Complexity
• Time complexity of algorithms :
polynomial time algorithm ("efficient algorithm") v.s.
exponential time algorithm ("inefficient algorithm")
f(n) \ n 10 30 50

n 0.00001 sec 0.00003 sec 0.00005 sec

n5 0.1 sec 24.3 sec 5.2 mins

2n 0.001 sec 17.9 mins 35.7 yrs

 “Hard” and “easy’ Problems
• Sometimes the dividing line between “easy” and “hard”
problems is a fine one. For example
– Find the shortest path in a graph from X to Y. (easy)
– Find the longest path in a graph from X to Y.(with no cycles)
(hard)
• View another way – as “yes/no” problems
– Is there a simple path from X to Y with weight <= M? (easy)
– Is there a simple path from X to Y with weight >= M? (hard)
– First problem can be solved in polynomial time.
– All known algorithms for the second problem (could) take
exponential time .
• Decision problem: The solution to the
problem is "yes" or "no". Most optimization
problems can be phrased as decision
problems (still have the same time
complexity).

Example :
Assume we have a decision algorithm X for
0/1 Knapsack problem with capacity M,
i.e. Algorithm X returns “Yes” or “No” to the
question
“Is there a solution with profit ≥ P subject to
knapsack capacity ≤ M?”
 We can repeatedly run algorithm X for
various profits(P values) to find an optimal
solution.
Example : Use binary search to get the
optimal profit,
maximum of lg ∑pi runs.
(where M is the capacity of the knapsack optimization problem)

Min Bound Optimal Profit Max Bound

Search for the optimal solution
0
∑pi
|___________________|_________________|
Optimization & Decision Problems
• Decision problems
– Given an input and a question regarding a
problem, determine if the answer is yes or no
• Optimization problems
– Find a solution with the “best” value
• Optimization problems can be cast as decision
problems that are easier to study
– E.g.: Shortest path: G = unweighted directed graph
• Find a path between u and v that uses the fewest edges
• Does a path exist from u to v consisting of at most k
edges?
Algorithmic vs Problem Complexity
• The algorithmic complexity of a computation is
some measure of how difficult is to perform the
computation (i.e., specific to an algorithm)
• The complexity of a computational problem or
task is the complexity of the algorithm with the
lowest order of growth of complexity for solving
that problem or performing that task.
– e.g. the problem of searching an ordered list has at most
lgn time complexity.
• Computational Complexity: deals with
classifying problems by how hard they are.
 Class of “P” Problems
• Class P consists of (decision) problems that are
solvable in polynomial time
• Polynomial-time algorithms
– Worst-case running time is O(nk), for some constant k
• Examples of polynomial time:
– O(n2), O(n3), O(1), O(n lg n)
• Examples of non-polynomial time:
– O(2n), O(nn), O(n!)
 Tractable/Intractable Problems
• Problems in P are also called tractable
• Problems not in P are intractable or unsolvable
– Can be solved in reasonable time only for small inputs
– Or, can not be solved at all

• Are non-polynomial algorithms always worst than

polynomial algorithms?
- n1,000,000 is technically tractable, but really impossible - nlog
log log n
is technically intractable, but easy
Example of Unsolvable Problem
• Turing discovered in the 1930’s that there
are problems unsolvable by any algorithm.
• The most famous of them is the halting
problem
– Given an arbitrary algorithm and its input, will
that algorithm eventually halt, or will it
continue forever in an “infinite loop?”
Examples of Intractable
Problems
 Intractable Problems
• Can be classified in various categories
based on their degree of difficulty, e.g.,
– NP
– NP-complete
– NP-hard
• Let’s define NP algorithms and NP
problems …
 Nondeterministic and NP Algorithms
Nondeterministic algorithm = two stage procedure:
1) Nondeterministic (“guessing”) stage:
generate randomly an arbitrary string that can be thought of
as a candidate solution (“certificate”)

2) Deterministic (“verification”) stage:

take the certificate and the instance to the problem and
returns YES if the certificate represents a solution

NP algorithms (Nondeterministic polynomial)

verification stage is polynomial
 Class of “NP” Problems
• Class NP consists of problems that could be
solved by NP algorithms
– i.e., verifiable in polynomial time
• If we were given a “certificate” of a solution,
we could verify that the certificate is correct in
time polynomial to the size of the input
• Warning: NP does not mean “non-polynomial”
 E.g.: Hamiltonian Cycle
• Given: a directed graph G = (V, E), determine a simple
cycle that contains each vertex in V
– Each vertex can only be visited once
• Certificate:
hamilton
– Sequence: 〈 v1, v2, v3, …, v|V| 〉
ian

not
hamilton
ian
 Is P = NP?
P
N
• Any problem in P is also in NP: P

P ⊆ NP
• The big (and open question) is whether NP
⊆ P or P = NP
– i.e., if it is always easy to check a solution,
should it also be easy to find a solution?
 NP-Completeness (informally)
P NP-complete
• NP-complete problems are NP

defined as the hardest

problems in NP
• Most practical problems turn out to be
either P or NP-complete.
 The Classes of P and NP
• The class P and Deterministic Turing
Machine
• Given a decision problem X, if there is a
polynomial time Deterministic Turing Machine
program that solves X, then X is belong to P
• Informally, there is a polynomial time
algorithm to solve the problem
• The class NP and Non-deterministic Turing
Machine
• Given a decision problem X.
If there is a polynomial time Non-deterministic
Turing machine program that solves X, then X
belongs to NP
• Given a decision problem X.
For every instance I of X,
(a) guess solution S for I, and
(b) check “is S a solution to I?”
If (a) and (b) can be done in polynomial time,
then X belongs to NP.
• Obvious : P ⊆ NP, i.e. A NP
(decision) problem in P does
not need “guess solution”.
The correct solution can be P
computed in polynomial time.

• Some problems which are in NP, but may not in P :

• 0/1 Knapsack Problem
• PARTITION Problem : Given a finite set of positive
integers Z.
Question : Is there a subset Z' of Z such that
Sum of all numbers in Z' = Sum of all numbers in
Z-Z' ?
i.e. ∑ Z' = ∑ (Z-Z')
1. Polynomial Transformation (" ∝ ")
• L1 ∝ L2 :
There is a polynomial time transformation
that transforms arbitrary instance of L1 to
some instance of L2.

• If L1 ∝ L2 then L2 is in P implies L1 is in P

(or L1 is not in P implies L2 is not in P)

• If L1 ∝ L2 and L2 ∝ L3 then L1 ∝ L3
• P: (Decision) problems solvable by deterministic
algorithms in polynomial time
• NP: (Decision) problems solved by non-deterministic
algorithms in polynomial time
• A group of (decision) problems,
including all of the ones we have NP-Complete
discussed (Satisfiability, 0/1
Knapsack, Longest Path, Partition)
have an additional important NP
property:
If any of them can be solved in P
polynomial time, then they all
can! problems are called NP-complete problems.
• These