hackerdashery
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2015–2026
10:44 · 3.7M views · Aug 26, 2014
An 11-minute animated introduction to P vs. NP and the wider landscape of complexity classes, inspired by the Complexity Zoo wiki. It assumes no background in computer science.
HN repeatedly recommends it as the best short, funny introduction to P vs. NP and complexity classes for people with no background.
8 comments from Hacker News
My absolute favorite overview of this - the video goes over both the explanation of the spaces, but also how it relates to a sort of understanding of reality itself! this video
There's a fantastic video I refer to every now and then if I'm a bit unsure about it, definitely recommend it - this video
> I would guess the P!=NP proof would be an example. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any easy description that the average person would understand. "Hard. Really hard. Don't be ridiculous.". Now backtrack 2 small examples on paper. Oh, look, the number of steps here grow, but these grow even faster! Especially mathematics when explained to a layperson so much depends on the language used. If one manages to keep the rest of the complexity zoo[1] out of the explanation and invests time into very basic examples, a lot things can be explained that otherwise the average person would not understand. [1] [LINK] EDIT: Looking for a video I stumbled upon last week that had a very nice, short explanation of P vs NP (which I did not find again), I found this one: Not lay-person simple, but very funny and also provides a cursory glance at what lies beyond P vs NP, i.e. the complexity zoo: this video (10 min)
This 10 minute video is a great introduction to the P = NP problem and computational complexity theory if you have no context. I've shown this to plenty of friends (including those outside of computer science). Essentially, "does being able to quickly recognize correct answers mean there's also a quick way to find them?" this video
A guy at a company I used to work for made a great video on this. Very understandable even without any background on the topic: this video