File:TSP_Deutschland_3.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
computational complexity theory
Sign in to saveAlso known as complexity theory
theoretical computer science and mathematics theory that classifies problems according to their inherent difficulty, and relates those classes to each other
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- academic discipline
- Part of
- theoretical computer science
Show 7 more facts
- is the study of
- computational complexity
- facet of
- algorithm
- Stack Exchange tag
- stackoverflow.com/tags/complexity-theory
- Commons category
- Computational complexity theory
- topic's main category
- Category:Computational complexity theory
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
- maintained by WikiProject
- WikiProject Mathematics
via Wikidata · CC0
~40 min read
Encyclopedic overview
In theoretical computer science and mathematics, computational complexity theory focuses on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and explores the relationships between these classifications. A computational problem is a task solved by a computer and is solvable by mechanical application of mathematical steps, such as an algorithm.
A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if its solution requires significant resources, whatever the algorithm used. The theory formalizes this intuition, by introducing mathematical models of computation to study these problems and quantifying their computational complexity, i.e., the amount of resources needed to solve them, such as time and storage.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “computational complexity theory” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.