So how does freshers week work here ?

You go to ur flatmates house and all play 'Who can code xyz program the fastest'

Dude! This is my uni you are talking about, it's not that bad. How did your year go anyway? Got your results? PM me.

I know it doesn't really make my argument any stronger, but the quotation is not uncited (I would never even dream of quoting it if it was), this is the pool they mentioned. With a sample size of 100, it's hardly the most significant study on the subject, but it sort of reinforces my point that the majority of computer scientists in the world believe that P!=NP (see section 2.2 in the aforementioned paper). Mind you, this is not an argument for P!=NP, it's merely an argument for the fact that most computer scientists believe that P!=NP.

You do raise a good point about Fermat's last theorem, and I know computational theory doesn't work on assumptions or intuitions, but to be honest I still like to think that we're never going to be able to factorise in polynomial time, or even find a polynomial-time algorithm for the travelling salesman problem, or any of the thousands of other NP-complete problems (not all of them, anyway). I think it all comes down to a matter of personal opinion really, you choose to be "agnostic" whereas I am more of an "atheist" when it comes to believing P=NP.

P.S. And yes, I agree that the philosophical argument is absolute rubbish.

The paper you linked to is quite interesting when you read the statistics. However, wikipedia, in its blind urge to misread things forgot the "Of those who answered". 22 people took the opinion that they could not say.

In terms of history I would say you are more like the Christians, convinced that based on evidence given to you so far, and the implications if you were wrong, that you must be right.

You are going into something you haven't studied properly with a very closed mind don't you think?

The thing about finding one Polynomial-time algorithm for the NP-complete set is that it brings them all down with it. Along with years of computational theory based on the assumption and a revolution in philosophy.

If that alone isn't worth keeping an open mind that P might equal NP then nothing is! Fight the establishment while you are a young Undergraduate and make your mind up on the issue much later after years of study. That way you're not going in with prejudice.

One word of advice: if you're an civil or mechanical engineer, don't bother with the bridge building and go out for possibly the last week of fun before your hard work begins.

Damn

Not true

I was drunk every day of that week, causing me amongst other things to fail the retard maths test, but damnit that bridge got built!