English

A new approach for a proof that P is NP

Computational Complexity 2023-02-20 v1

Abstract

In this paper we propose a new approach for developing a proof that P=NP. We propose to use a polynomial-time reduction of a NP-complete problem to Linear Programming. Earlier such attempts used polynomial-time transformation which is a special form of reduction that uses a subroutine for the easier Linear Programming Problem only once. We use multiple calls to the subroutine increasing considerably the effectiveness of the reduction. Further the NP-complete problem we choose is also unusual. We define a special kind of acyclic directed graph which we call a time graph. We define Hamiltonian time paths in such graphs and also the Hamiltonian Time Path problem (HTPATH) and prove that it is NP-complete. We then state a conjecture whose proof will immediately lead to a polynomial-time algorithm for this problem proving P=NP.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2302.09024,
  title  = {A new approach for a proof that P is NP},
  author = {Malay Dutta and Anjana K. Mahanta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.09024},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

10 pages 0 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T08:42:58.456Z