3,719 research outputs found
The quantum adversary method and classical formula size lower bounds
We introduce two new complexity measures for Boolean functions, or more
generally for functions of the form f:S->T. We call these measures sumPI and
maxPI. The quantity sumPI has been emerging through a line of research on
quantum query complexity lower bounds via the so-called quantum adversary
method [Amb02, Amb03, BSS03, Zha04, LM04], culminating in [SS04] with the
realization that these many different formulations are in fact equivalent.
Given that sumPI turns out to be such a robust invariant of a function, we
begin to investigate this quantity in its own right and see that it also has
applications to classical complexity theory.
As a surprising application we show that sumPI^2(f) is a lower bound on the
formula size, and even, up to a constant multiplicative factor, the
probabilistic formula size of f. We show that several formula size lower bounds
in the literature, specifically Khrapchenko and its extensions [Khr71, Kou93],
including a key lemma of [Has98], are in fact special cases of our method.
The second quantity we introduce, maxPI(f), is always at least as large as
sumPI(f), and is derived from sumPI in such a way that maxPI^2(f) remains a
lower bound on formula size. While sumPI(f) is always a lower bound on the
quantum query complexity of f, this is not the case in general for maxPI(f). A
strong advantage of sumPI(f) is that it has both primal and dual
characterizations, and thus it is relatively easy to give both upper and lower
bounds on the sumPI complexity of functions. To demonstrate this, we look at a
few concrete examples, for three functions: recursive majority of three, a
function defined by Ambainis, and the collision problem.Comment: Appears in Conference on Computational Complexity 200
A Primer on the Tools and Concepts of Computable Economics
Computability theory came into being as a result of Hilbert's attempts to meet Brouwer's challenges, from an intuitionistc and constructive standpoint, to formalism as a foundation for mathematical practice. Viewed this way, constructive mathematics should be one vision of computability theory. However, there are fundamental differences between computability theory and constructive mathematics: the Church-Turing thesis is a disciplining criterion in the former and not in the latter; and classical logic - particularly, the law of the excluded middle - is not accepted in the latter but freely invoked in the former, especially in proving universal negative propositions. In Computable Economic an eclectic approach is adopted where the main criterion is numerical content for economic entities. In this sense both the computable and the constructive traditions are freely and indiscriminately invoked and utilised in the formalization of economic entities. Some of the mathematical methods and concepts of computable economics are surveyed in a pedagogical mode. The context is that of a digital economy embedded in an information society
Complexity vs Energy: Theory of Computation and Theoretical Physics
This paper is a survey dedicated to the analogy between the notions of {\it
complexity} in theoretical computer science and {\it energy} in physics. This
analogy is not metaphorical: I describe three precise mathematical contexts,
suggested recently, in which mathematics related to (un)computability is
inspired by and to a degree reproduces formalisms of statistical physics and
quantum field theory.Comment: 23 pages. Talk at the satellite conference to ECM 2012, "QQQ Algebra,
Geometry, Information", Tallinn, July 9-12, 201
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