Talk:Ladner's theorem

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[edit] Weasel words

The article said:

No natural problem is currently known to have this property.

No problem, natural or not, is known to have this property. If any were, it would a fortiori be a proof the P≠NP. I have removed the weasel word "natural". -- Dominus 20:06, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The property was: "of being in NP-(NP-hard + P) in case P!=NP", so some problems are known to have this property. The point was whether some problem that have been actually considered in practice have this property. I will have a check of how this is formulated in the books. Well, maybe "considered in practice" is a good alternative? - Liberatore(T) 20:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I see. The original wording is ambiguous, and I read it the wrong way. One could take "this property" to be the property ' x∈NP ∧ ¬(x∈NPC), or "this property" could be P≠NP → ( x∈NP ∧ ¬x∈NPC ). Both are interesting; I took it to mean the former, but the latter was intended. Thanks for pointing this out.

I have no objection to the word "natural" in the way it was intended now that I understand what was meant. But I do think the article needs to be reworded to avoid the ambiguity in phrasing. -- Dominus 18:02, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The original version was indeed misleading. I have expanded the article a bit to avoid ambiguities. - Liberatore(T) 13:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)