Houjun Liu

SU-CS154 Week 1

computing

computing is to find out something by using mathematical processes …which doesn’t necessarily require computers

computing is the evolution of an environment via repeated applications of simple, local rules

computational lens

“is it likely / could this computation (i.e. folding proteins) be done within the timeframe given?”

these computations emerge sometimes naturally; such as markets computing equilibrium simply by buying and selling directly.

zero-knowledge

zero-knowledge proofs are proofs which is able to show results in computation without being given the knowledge that’s needed as inputs to the proof. this is usually true due to limited resources in computation

graph coloring

can we legally 3-color (such that any adjacent nodes are colored differently) some particular graph? a central question of computer science: because if you can, then P=NP; otherwise P!=NP.

4-coloring theorem

any graph can be colored with a legal 4-coloring