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The Statistical Mechanics Approach to Hard Combinatorial Optimization Problems.

Student-Run Research Seminar

Speaker: Pierluigi Contucci, UCD Mathematics
Location: 693 Kerr
Start time: Wed, Nov 18 1998, 1:10PM

The seminar will discuss how some hard (NP complete) optimization problems can be studied with the help of statistical mechanics ideas developed by physicists. The theory will be illustrated in the case called Sherrington-Kirkpatric model. Some rigorous result and the open mathematical problems will be discussed.