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Mathematics

The Complexity Classes NP and NP-Complete Problems

Quick fact

The first problem ever proven NP-complete was the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT), shown by Stephen Cook in 1971. This single result unlocked the entire class of NP-complete problems, and today thousands of problems, from scheduling to protein folding, are known to be NP-complete.

Why this is interesting

You’ve probably heard of the traveling salesman problem. But why is it so hard that even the smartest computers struggle with it? The answer lies in a mysterious class called NP.