Re:AlphaFold: a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in...
by karl-j on Monday November 30, 2020 @11:23AM
(#25255422)
I think I'm almost as uninformed as you, but I believe it comes down to the difference between perfect solutions and close enough solutions. Consider the classic NP problem of the traveling salesman problem.
"[Modern heuristic and approximation algorithms] can find solutions for extremely large problems (millions of cities) within a reasonable time which are with a high probability just 2–3% away from the optimal solution." [0]
When close enough is enough, NP problems can often be solved in P time, and I suspect this is one of those cases. For crypto however, close enough is not enough.
"[Modern heuristic and approximation algorithms] can find solutions for extremely large problems (millions of cities) within a reasonable time which are with a high probability just 2–3% away from the optimal solution." [0]
When close enough is enough, NP problems can often be solved in P time, and I suspect this is one of those cases. For crypto however, close enough is not enough.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem#He...