Before Jiang Fuyue could respond, people around her began to sneer—
“Yeah, go on then, explain to everyone how you’re going to solve a problem that’s already wrong! Hahaha…”
“You’re too much! How can you solve something that’s already wrong? Isn’t that just making another mistake?”
“Exactly, it’d be wildly wrong!”
“Hahaha…”
The room erupted in laughter and mockery.
Fan Ye’s cheeks flushed with anger. “The results aren’t even out yet, how can they say that—”
As she spoke, her fists had already clenched tightly.
Gao Zhaoming, fearing she’d run up and punch the loudest hecklers, tried to calm her down. “Take it easy, wait until the results come out to slap them in the face. Just… don’t do anything rash with so many people watching…”
Only then did Fan Ye reluctantly hold back.
“Say something! The professor called on you, so why aren’t you talking?”
“I bet she’s scared.”
“If you’re scared, just admit defeat. Then we don’t have to wait for the results. Stop wasting our time.”
“…”
Jiang Fuyue raised her eyes coldly, sweeping her gaze over the loudest hecklers. Suddenly, she stepped forward.
The person who’d been taunting swallowed nervously. “W-what are you doing?”
“Are you going to hit us? I’m warning you, we’re not afraid!”
Even as he claimed to be unafraid, there was clear fear in his eyes, and he unconsciously leaned back.
Jiang Fuyue curved her lips, her cold expression softening slightly. “Could you move? I need to use the whiteboard.”
“…?”
“Didn’t you understand? You’re blocking my way.”
Awkwardly, they stepped aside, and the crowd parted to make a path. Jiang Fuyue walked directly through, stopping at the whiteboard.
“This question,” she began, “is essentially an introductory problem exploring the P versus NP issue.”
She uncapped a black marker and wrote:
P versus NP
The crowd looked at each other, bewildered.
“What is that?”
“I’ve been learning programming since middle school, and I’ve never heard of this.”
“Is it really that hard?”
“No idea.”
“….”
Someone pulled out their phone and started searching for information.
Jiang Fuyue continued calmly, “In 1971, Stephen Cook and Leonid Levin independently raised the question of whether the complexity classes P and NP are identical. In other words, does P equal NP?
“Simply put, P represents problems that a computer can solve quickly, while NP represents problems for which we want to find the optimal solution. If P = NP, then we could easily find solutions to any given problem.[1]”
“This would mean society as we know it would undergo a massive transformation, and the level of automation in fields like medicine, science, entertainment, and all aspects of human society would experience a qualitative leap.”
“Let me give an example: in the search for the best way to treat lung cancer, we have various treatment options, represented by P. With computational processing, if P equals NP, then NP would be the optimal solution we’re looking for.”
Jiang Fuyue continued, “The core of this problem is derived from the question’s premise. You think it’s wrong because this puzzle has yet to be solved. In other words, whether P equals NP is an ‘unsolved question,’ not an ‘unsolvable question.’ There’s a fundamental difference between the two!”
The Clay Mathematics Institute in the U.S. listed seven unsolved problems on May 24, 2000. The P versus NP problem ranked alongside the Hodge conjecture, the Poincaré conjecture, the Riemann hypothesis, and the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap issues.
These challenges also echo the 23 historic mathematical problems posed by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1900 in Paris.
“… Of course, over the past century, many of Hilbert’s 23 problems have been solved. Resolving these millennium prize problems builds on that legacy and could spark groundbreaking advancements in modern cryptography, aerospace, communications, and other fields.”
After listening to her explanation, everyone was even more stunned.
This was just a question from the IOI competition, right? How did it end up relating to cryptography, aerospace, and even automation in human society?
Gulp—
Gao Zhaoming swallowed hard, muttering, “I suddenly feel unworthy.”
Huang Hui looked at him blankly, “Who doesn’t?”
“What the h*ll? How could they use an unsolved mystery as a competition question? Is the test-maker crazy, or is the committee out of touch? Why would they think we could solve it?”
“Don’t twist things around. The question isn’t asking you to prove P = NP; it’s just based on the idea of finding the optimal solution within this complexity class. The problem itself gives a specific scenario and plenty of parameters.”
“No wonder the test was so complex. Selecting the NP optimal solution from P is beyond imaginable in terms of computational load and complexity.”
“What’s going on? Don’t let her words confuse you! Even if the question isn’t wrong, it’s way beyond the syllabus and shouldn’t be in an IOI competition.”
But others, having done their research, began to regain their composure, and reason took over—
“It’s not beyond the syllabus.”
“What?”
“This belongs to the theory of computational complexity within theoretical informatics, and it’s on the syllabus. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”
“Are you crazy?!” snarled the ringleader, the blond guy gritting his teeth. “If it’s not beyond the syllabus, we’re all scoring zero! Forget the gold medal; don’t even think about it!”
“But the facts speak for themselves.”
The group fell silent.
Suddenly, someone shouted, “It’s out! The test results are out…”
