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NP-complete Problems and Physical Reality

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arxiv quant-ph/0502072 v2 pith:7WKO7LXT submitted 2005-02-12 quant-ph cs.CCgr-qc

classification quant-phcs.CCgr-qc
keywords quantumcomputingnp-completeproblemsbubblesefficientlyphysicalproposals
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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Can NP-complete problems be solved efficiently in the physical universe? I survey proposals including soap bubbles, protein folding, quantum computing, quantum advice, quantum adiabatic algorithms, quantum-mechanical nonlinearities, hidden variables, relativistic time dilation, analog computing, Malament-Hogarth spacetimes, quantum gravity, closed timelike curves, and "anthropic computing." The section on soap bubbles even includes some "experimental" results. While I do not believe that any of the proposals will let us solve NP-complete problems efficiently, I argue that by studying them, we can learn something not only about computation but also about physics.

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Forward citations

Cited by 4 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. OpenAlex reports about 153 citations worldwide. Full citation record

  1. Quantum algorithm for Valiant-Vazirani reduction

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    Constructs quantum filtered oracle for Valiant-Vazirani theorem reducing SAT to UNIQUE SAT, enabling polynomial-time NP solution via torsion nonlinearity in noise-free limit but not #P.

  2. Nonlinear Hamiltonians and Boolean satisfiability

    quant-ph 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    Nonlinear Hamiltonians on ancilla qubits enable efficient solution of UNIQUE SAT with ⟨σ^z⟩σ^z, 3SAT with ⟨σ^x⟩σ^y - ⟨σ^y⟩σ^x, and #SAT with ⟨σ^y⟩⟨σ^z⟩σ^x - ⟨σ^x⟩⟨σ^z⟩σ^y nonlinearity.

  3. A Compressive Sensing Inspired Monte-Carlo Method for Combinatorial Optimization

    math.OC 2025-10 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Random samples of a compressible combinatorial objective, converted to moment sketches and decoded by matching pursuit, can recover the optimum with far fewer function calls than brute force.

  4. From spin squeezing to fast state discrimination

    quant-ph 2024-10 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

    In the large-N limit, spin squeezing torsion yields a nonlinear qubit governed by the two-state Gross-Pitaevskii equation that solves single-input state discrimination on the Bloch sphere.

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