Friday, March 25, 2011

"P < > NP is a fact of nature"

That was the message from Avi Wigderson's pop talk on Wednesday in Paris.

Consequently, an open question: how does nature know how to efficiently fold proteins? Is it that our theoretical models are wrong (so that the problem is not really NP-hard)? Or is it that there is additional structure that gives it structure that makes it amenable? Either way, the answer would be interesting.

In Avi's world "interesting" is a word loaded with meaning. He does not employ it to mean a polite lack of dissent, but to mean that something like "revealing a deeper truth".

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.