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Mathematics

The P vs NP Problem and Cook-Levin Theorem

Quick fact

The Cook-Levin theorem (1971) proved that the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT) is NP-complete, meaning if you could solve SAT quickly, you could solve every NP problem quickly—yet no one has found a fast algorithm for any of them.

Why this is interesting

You've probably heard that some problems are 'hard' and some are 'easy'. But what if a problem that is easy to check is actually hard to solve? That's the mystery behind the most famous unsolved question in computer science.