A Dogged Pursuit for Satisfaction - Exploring Boolean Satisfiability and Computational Complexity

Join a distinguished lecture exploring the fundamental P vs NP problem and Boolean satisfiability (SAT) algorithms through the research journey of MIT CSAIL Professor Ryan Williams. Delve into the challenges of developing algorithms that can outperform exhaustive search methods for SAT, discovering unexpected connections between computational complexity theory and algorithm design. Learn about groundbreaking findings in fine-grained complexity, where problems solvable in polynomial time prove more challenging to optimize than SAT itself. Explore the innovative "algorithmic method" that establishes impossibility results in circuit complexity through SAT algorithm analysis. Drawing from his extensive research experience and accolades, including the 2024 Gödel Prize, Professor Williams presents a fascinating narrative of how persistent investigation of SAT algorithms has led to profound insights in theoretical computer science and computational complexity theory.