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Andrew van der Poel, NC State, Reductions & Problems which Computers are Slow to Solve
October 31, 2019 | 4:30 pm - 5:20 pm EDT
We all tackle hard problems everyday, like finding a parking spot in the Dan Allen Deck. However, there are special types of problems which are hard even for a computer to solve. Reductions, conversions of one problem into another, play a critical role in determining the hardness of these computational problems, and lead to philosophical questions about what human actions are actually hard. Technical enough to be interesting and tangible enough to quickly understand, reductions are a fun way to play with a theoretical computer science concept. Our examples will largely be mathematical and the talk should be accessible to all undergraduates.