Lecture, Barnard's Inn Hall, Monday, 11 May 2026 - 18:00

How Hard is too Hard? An Introduction to Complexity

Silhouette of a person writing mathematical equations on a whiteboard

Some mathematical problems can easily be solved on a computer, whilst some are probably impossible. Complexity theory is how we analyse difficulty, and one of the most famous open problems in mathematics is the question of whether P = NP: if the answer to a problem is easy to check, is the problem actually easy to solve? This lecture introduces the work of Alan Turing and other pioneers in the subject, before bringing us up-to-date with some recent progress.

This is the Annual lecture hosted with the London Mathematical Society.

Professor Colva Roney-Dougal OBE

Professor Colva Roney-Dougal OBE

Colva Mary Roney-Dougal OBE is a British mathematician specializing in group theory and computational algebra. She is Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of...

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