Hello SUMS members, Thanks to all of you who turned up last week. We apparently had quite a turnout, which is only fitting considering how good a speaker Ivan is. For the 2nd consecutive week, we will be having a talk given by a former Sydney Uni student. This week it will be pure mathematician (and former statistician) Zhuo Jia Dai, who has described his talk with perhaps the shortest abstract that I have ever seen: "An Introduction to the P=NP Problem" Let me fill in the details (as best I can). The P=NP Problem is a very important problem in theoretical computer science, so important in fact, that a $1 million prize is being offered for its proof (it is still unsolved). It relates to the complexity classes P and NP. To describe it crudely, the problem asks: if the answer to a decision problem (i.e. yes or no) can be verified in polynomial time, can the answer also be COMPUTED in polynomial time? If yes, then P=NP. Yes, that didn’t really explain the problem at all, now did it? Nevermind, I’m not the one giving the talk anyway. But this IS a very interesting problem, and Zhuo has given this talk before so he knows what he’s talking about. In any case, I highly recommend you come! Talk: Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Speaker: Zhuo Jia Dai Location: Carslaw 452 Date/Time: Wednesday, May 6, 1-2pm Hope to see you there! SUMS President