P, NP, NP-Hard & NP-

complete
problems
Prof. Shaik
Naseera
Department of
CSE JNTUACEK,
Kalikiri 1
 Objective
• P, NP, NP-Hards and NP-
Complete
• Solving 3-CNF Sat problem
• Discussion of Gate Questions

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 Types of
• Trackable Problems
• Intrackable
• Decision
• Optimization

Trackable : Problems that can be

solvable in a reasonable(polynomial)
time.
Intrackable : Some problems are
intractable, as they grow large, we
are unable to solve them in
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reasonable time.
 Tractability
• What constitutes reasonable time?
– Standard working definition: polynomial
time
– On an input of size n the worst-case
running time is O(nk) for some
constant k
– O(n2), O(n3), O(1), O(n lg n), O(2n), O(nn),
O(n!)
– Polynomial time: O(n2), O(n3), O(1), O(n
lg n)
– Not in polynomial time: O(2n), O(nn),
O(n!)
• Are all problems solvable in 4

polynomial time?
Optimization/Decision
Problems
• Optimization Problems
– An optimization problem is one which
asks, “What is the optimal solution to
problem X?”
– Examples:
• 0-1 Knapsack
• Fractional Knapsack
• Minimum Spanning Tree
• Decision Problems
– An decision problem is one with yes/no
answer
– Examples:
• Does a graph G have a MST of weight  W?
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Optimization/Decision
Problems
• An optimization problem tries to find an optimal
solution
• A decision problem tries to answer a yes/no question
• Many problems will have decision and optimization
versions
– Eg: Traveling salesman problem
• optimization: find hamiltonian cycle of
minimum weight
• decision: is there a hamiltonian cycle of
weight  k

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P, NP, NP-Hard, NP-
Complete -
Definitions

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 The Class P

P: the class of problems that have polynomial-

time deterministic algorithms.
– That is, they are solvable in O(p(n)), where p(n)
is a polynomial on n
– A deterministic algorithm is (essentially) one that
always computes the correct answer

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 Sample Problems
in P
• Fractional
Knapsack
• MST
• Sorting
• Others?

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 The class
NP
NP: the class of decision problems that are solvable
in polynomial time on a nondeterministic machine
(or with a nondeterministic algorithm)
– (A determinstic computer is what we know)
– A nondeterministic computer is one that can “guess” the
right answer or solution
• Think of a nondeterministic computer as a
parallel machine that can freely spawn an
infinite number of processes
• Thus NP can also be thought of as the class of
problems “whose solutions can be verified in
polynomial time”
• Note that NP stands for
“Nondeterministic Polynomial-time”

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 Sample Problems in
NPKnapsack
• Fractional
• MST
• Others?
– Traveling Salesman
– Graph Coloring
– Satisfiability (SAT)
• the problem of deciding whether a
given Boolean formula is satisfiable

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 P And NP
Summary
• P = set of problems that can be
solved in polynomial time
– Examples: Fractional Knapsack, …
• NP = set of problems for which a solution
can be verified in polynomial time
– Examples: Fractional Knapsack,…, TSP,
CNF SAT, 3-CNF SAT
• Clearly P c NP
• Open question: Does P = NP?
– P ≠ NP
 NP-
• What does NP-hard mean?
hard
– A lot of times you can solve a problem by reducing
it to a different problem. I can reduce Problem
B to Problem A if, given a solution to Problem A, I
can easily construct a solution to Problem B. (In
this case, "easily" means "in polynomial time.“).
• A problem is NP-hard if all problems in
NP are polynomial time reducible to
it, ...
• Ex:- Hamiltonian Cycle
Every problem in NP is reducible to
HC in polynomial time. Ex:- TSP is
B A
. Example:tolcm(m, n) = m * n /
reducible
13

gcd(m, n),
 NP-complete
problems
• A problem is NP-complete if the
problem is both
– NP-hard, and
– NP.
 Reductio
n
• A problem R can be reduced to another
problem Q if any instance of R can be
rephrased to an instance of Q, the
solution to which provides a solution to
the instance of R
– This rephrasing is called a transformation
• Intuitively: If R reduces in polynomial
time to Q, R is “no harder to solve”
than Q
• Example: lcm(m, n) = m * n / gcd(m,
n),
lcm(m,n) problem is reduced to
 NP-Hard and NP-
Complete
• If R is polynomial-time reducible to
Q, we denote this R p Q
• Definition of NP-Hard and
NP- Complete:
– If all problems R ϵ NP are
polynomial-time
reducible to Q, then Q is NP-
Hard
– We say Q is NP-Complete if Q is NP-
Hard and Q ϵ NP
• If R p Q and R is NP-Hard, Q is
17
 Summar
y
• P is set of problems that can be solved
by a deterministic Turing machine in
Polynomial time.
• NP is set of problems that can be solved
by a Non-deterministic Turing Machine
in Polynomial time. P is subset of NP
(any problem that can be solved by
deterministic machine in polynomial
time can also be solved by non-
deterministic machine in polynomial
time) but P≠NP.
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• Some problems can be translated into one
another in such a way that a fast solution
to one problem would automatically give
us a fast solution to the other.
• There are some problems that every
single
problem in NP can be translated into, and a
fast solution to such a problem would
automatically
give us a fast solution to every problem in
NP. This group of problems are known as
NP- Complete. Ex:- Clique
• A problem is NP-hard if an algorithm for
solving
it can be translated into one for solving
any NP-
problem (nondeterministic polynomial
time) problem. NP-hard therefore means
"at least as hard as any NP-problem," 19

although it might, in fact, be harder.

 First NP-complete problem
— Circuit Satisfiability
(problem definition)
• Boolean combinational circuit
– Boolean combinational elements,
wired together
– Each element, inputs and outputs
(binary)
– Limit the number of outputs to 1.
– Called logic gates: NOT gate, AND gate,
OR gate.
– true table: giving the outputs for
each setting of inputs
– true assignment: a set of boolean 20

inputs.
 Circuit Satisfiability
Problem:
• Circuit satisfying problem: given a
definition
boolean combinational circuit
composed of AND, OR, and NOT, is it
stisfiable?
• CIRCUIT-SAT={<C>: C is a
satisfiable boolean circuit}
• Implication: in the area of computer-
aided hardware optimization, if a
subcircuit always produces 0, then the
subcircuit can be replaced by a simpler
subcircuit that omits all gates and just 21
output a 0.
Two instances of circuit satisfiability problems

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 Solving circuit-
satisfiability
problem
• Intuitive solution:
– for each possible assignment,
check whether it generates
1.
– suppose the number of inputs is k,
then the total possible assignments
are 2k.
So the running time is Ω(2k). When
the size of the problem is Θ(k), then
the running time is not polynomial.
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 Example of reduction of CIRCUIT-SAT to SAT
ф= x10(x10x(x7 x8 x9))
(x9x(x6 v x7))
(x8x(x5 v x6))
(x7x(x1 x2 x4))
(x6 x x4))
(x5x(x1 v x2))
(x4xx3)

REDUCTION: ф= x10= x7 x8 x9=(x1 x2 x4)  (x5 v x6) (x6 v
x7 )
=(x1 x2 x4)  ((x1 v x2) v x4) (x4 v (x1 x2 x4))=…. 24
 Conversion to 3
CNF
• The result is that in ф', each clause has at
most three literals.
• Change each clause into conjunctive normal
form as follows:
– Construct a true table, (small, at most 8 by 4)
– Write the disjunctive normal form for all true-table
items evaluating to 0
– Using DeMorgan law to change to CNF.
• The resulting ф'' is in CNF but each clause has
3 or less literals.
• Change 1 or 2-literal clause into 3-literal
clause as follows:
– If a clause has one literal l, change it to
(lvpvq)(lvpvq) (lvpvq) (lvpvq).
– If a clause has two literals (l1v l2), change it to (l1v l2
vp) 
(l1v l2 vp).
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Example of a polynomial-time reduction:

We will reduce the

3CNF-satisfiability
problem to the

CLIQUE problem

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3CNF literal
formula:
(x1 v x2 v x3 )  (x3 v x5 v x6 )  (x3 v x6 v x4 )  (x4 v x5 v
x6 )

clause
Each clause has three literals

Language:
3CNF-SAT ={ w : w is a satisfiable
3CNF formula}
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 A 5-clique in graph G

Language:
CLIQUE = {< G, k >: graph G
contains a
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Transform formula to
graph. Example:
(x1 v x2 v x 4 )  (x1 v x2 v x 4 )  (x1 v x2 v x3 )  (x2 v x3
v x4 )
Create x1 Clause
x2 2 x4 Clause
Nodes: 3
x1
x1
Clause x2
1 x2

x4 Clause x3
4
x2 x4
x3
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(x1 v x2 v x 4 )  (x1 v x2 v x 4 )  (x1 v x2 v x3 )  (x2 v x3
v x4 )

x1 x2 x4

x1 x1

x2
x2

x4 x3

x2 x3 x4

Add link from a literal  to a literal in

every other clause, except the
complement  30
(x1 v x2 v x 4 )  (x1 v x2 v x 4 )  (x1 v x2 v x3 )  (x2 v x3
v x4 )

x1 x2 x4

x1 x1

x2
x2

x4 x3

x2 x3 x4

Resulting
Graph
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(x1 v x2 v x 4 )  (x1 v x2 v x4 )  (x1 v x2 v x3 )  (x2 v x3 v
x4 ) = 1
=1
x12 = x4
0 x1 x2
x
x34 =
= x1 x1
0
1
x2
x2

x4 x3

x2 x3 x4

The formula is satisfied if and only

if the Graph has a 4-clique
The objective is to find a clique of size
End of
4, where 4 is the number of clauses.
Proof
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Theorem:
is NP-
If: a. Language A
complete is
b. Language B in NP
c. A is polynomial time reducible
to B

Then: B is NP-complete

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Corollary CLIQUE is NP-
: complete
Proof:
a. 3CNF-SAT is NP-complete
b. CLIQUE is in NP
c. 3CNF-SAT is polynomial reducible to
CLIQUE
(shown earlier)

Apply previous theorem with

A=3CNF-SAT and B=CLIQUE
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Previous Gate
Questions

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Q. No.
1

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Q. No. 2

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Q. No. 3

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Q. No. 4

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Q. No. 5

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Q. No. 6

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Q. No. 7

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Q. No. 8

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Q. No. 10

There exist: search

problem

Explanation: The problem of

finding whether there exist a
Hamiltonian Cycle or not is NP
Hard and NP Complete Both.
Finding a Hamiltonian cycle in a
graph G = (V,E) with V divisible
by 3 is also NP Hard.

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Q. No. 11

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Thank
You

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