On Feasibly Solving NP-complete Problems

16 October 2023, Version 1
This content is an early or alternative research output and has not been peer-reviewed by Cambridge University Press at the time of posting.

Abstract

NAE-3SAT consists in knowing whether a Boolean formula ϕ in 3CNF has a truth assignment such that for each clause at least one literal is true and at least one literal is false. NAE-3SAT remains NP-complete when all clauses are monotone. We create a polynomial time reduction which converts the monotone version into a bounded number of linear constraints on real numbers. Since the linear optimization on real numbers can be solved in polynomial time, then we can decide this NP-complete problem in polynomial time. Certainly, the problem of solving linear constraints on real numbers is equivalent to solve the particular case when there is a linear optimization without any objective to maximize or minimize. If any NP-complete can be solved in polynomial time, then we obtain that P = NP. Moreover, our polynomial reduction is feasible since it can be done in linear time.

Keywords

complexity classes
boolean formula
completeness
polynomial time

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