SUMS Meeting: Dai -- Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Hello SUMS members,

Thanks to all of you who turned up last week. We apparently had quite a 
turnout, which is only fitting considering how good a speaker Ivan is. For 
the 2nd consecutive week, we will be having a talk given by a former Sydney 
Uni student. This week it will be pure mathematician (and former 
statistician) Zhuo Jia Dai, who has described his talk with perhaps the 
shortest abstract that I have ever seen:

"An Introduction to the P=NP Problem"

Let me fill in the details (as best I can). The P=NP Problem is a very 
important problem in theoretical computer science, so important in fact, 
that a $1 million prize is being offered for its proof (it is still 
unsolved). It relates to the complexity classes P and NP. To describe it 
crudely, the problem asks: if the answer to a decision problem (i.e. yes or 
no) can be verified in polynomial time, can the answer also be COMPUTED in 
polynomial time? If yes, then P=NP.

Yes, that didn’t really explain the problem at all, now did it? Nevermind, 
I’m not the one giving the talk anyway. But this IS a very interesting 
problem, and Zhuo has given this talk before so he knows what he’s talking 
about. In any case, I highly recommend you come!

Talk: Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Speaker: Zhuo Jia Dai
Location: Carslaw 452
Date/Time: Wednesday, May 6, 1-2pm

Hope to see you there!

SUMS President