Are you tired of computer science professors telling you about NP-complete problems?  Why not tell them a thing or two?

Spend the month of November trying to find the holy grail of computer science: whether or not P=NP.  You may have to google for more information about this.  This jam is intended primarily for people who have some interest in computer science but lack PHDs.  Also, this is more an algorithm jam than a game jam, but maybe you can find a use for your algorithms in game development.

Project Ideas

Here's some examples of fun projects to work on for this jam:

• Solve an NP-complete problem.
• Convert an NP-complete problem into another NP-complete problem.
• Prove that a problem is or isn't NP-complete.
• Write a mathematical proof of whether P=NP or not.
• Find some new application for an NP-complete algorithm.
• Allocate more computing resources to an NP-complete problem.  For instance, this could be using the graphics card to perform mathematical computations.  Or it could be multi-threading or using a network of computers.

Some of the most experienced computer scientists in the world have spent years trying to solve these problems.  They have the brains.  They have the funding.  They can access academic papers that are hidden behind paywalls and make no sense to mere mortals.

But we have something they don't:

Numbers.  Don't forget you're not alone.

This November is the first annual Nondeterministic November, an event where thousands (or possibly dozens) of itch.io users will try to solve NP-complete problems.

Post your code or your proofs on itch.io for all to see.  There's no ranking system, and this jam offers no prizes.  But here are some other benefits:

• If you can prove whether P=NP, the Clay Institute will give you $1 million.  (It might be a bit hard to collect if it's a collaborative solution.)
• It would be nice to have some NP-complete algorithms in your toolbox.  I've heard that they turn up a lot.
• Chaos and destruction!  If you can find some way to factor large numbers quickly, you can wreck the entire Internet.
• You might learn something.
• If you participate in this jam, you're exempt from No Nut November.

Perhaps a thousand code monkeys banging away on keyboards will succeed where the people who know what they're doing haven't.  Or perhaps not.

Rules

1. Don't submit irrelevant junk (e.g. bubble sort, naked pictures, propaganda).
2. Don't submit after the submitting period.
3. You're allowed to use code or materials you already have.

In general, code submissions should be code with or without executable files.  Text submissions (for proofs, etc.) should be .pdf files.  However, this is a non-ranked jam.  If you submit something in a different format, there's not any real consequence.

I plan to use Java for this jam.  It isn't required, but Java is possibly the most commonly used language.  It is almost as fast as C/C++, but it has memory management.

Open Source

Participants should post their contributions to an itch.io page.  If you want to let others use your submissions, include an open-source license.  I recommend the MIT license because it's extremely permissive.  MIT licensed software can even be used in commercial products.  See https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT.  Because the MIT license is extremely permissive, anyone can alter, merge, and/or use contributions.  They can be used by anyone for almost anything.

I imagine that someone could use the open source submissions to make either a library of algorithms for solving NP-complete problems or create a portfolio solver that applies many solvers to the same NP-complete problem.

A word of caution: if you do decide to open source your code, don't be surprised if someone else uses it.

Licensing is less of a thing for proofs, but I can imagine someone posting a proof with an open source license.  The point would be that people could combine it with other proofs to create either a massive proof or a library of theorems.