Original version Of This story appeared in Quanta magazine,
Pose a question for a magic 8 ball, and it will give some annoying answer. We think it as a child's toy, but theoretical computer scientists appoint a similar tool. They often imagine that they can consult imaginary devices called racrales that can answer specific questions immediately, and correctly. These imaginary ideas experiments have inspired the new algorithm and helped researchers map the scenario of calculations.
Researchers inviting Oracles work in a sub -region of computer science called computational complexity theory. They are concerned with the underlying difficulty of problems such as determining whether a number is prominent or finding the smallest path between two points in a network. Some problems are easy to solve, others find very difficult, but there are solutions that are easy to check, while still easy for others Quantum computer But it is difficult for ordinary people.
Complications theorists want to understand whether these obvious differences in difficulty are fundamental. Is there anything difficult about some problems about some problems, or are we not enough to come up with a good solution? Researchers address such questions by sorting problems “Complexity class“-All easy problems go into a category, for example, and all easily examining problems go on in another-and prove theorem about relationships between those classes.
Unfortunately, maping the scenario of computational difficulty, well, has become difficult. So in the mid-1970s, some researchers began to study what would happen if the rules of calculation were different. This is the place where Oracles come.
Like Magic 8 balls, orcles are devices that immediately answer questions without revealing anything about their internal functioning. Magic unlike 8 balls, they always say yes or not, and they are always right – an advantage of being imaginary. Furthermore, any racrael will only answer a specific type of question, such as “Is this number prime?”
What is these imaginary devices useful to understand the real world? In short, they can reveal the hidden connections between different complexity sections.
Take two most famous complexity classes. There is a class of problems that are easy to solve, which researchers call “P,”, and the class of problems that are easy to investigate, which the researcher calls “NP”. Is it easy to solve all the easy-to-easy problems? If so, it would mean that NP will be equal to P, and all encryption will be done. Easy to crack (Between other results). Complications theorists suspect that NP P is not equal, but they cannot prove it, even though they are trying to reduce relationships for two classes More than 50 years,
Oracles have helped them to understand better with whom they are working with. Researchers have invented questions that answer questions that help solve many different problems. In a world where every computer had a hotline for one of these, it would be easy to solve all the easy-to-easy problems, and PNP will be equal to. But other, less helpful ooracles have the opposite effect. In the world with these oracles, P and NP will be different.