Breakthrough: Simulating Time Complexity in Square-Root Space

2025-02-27

New research shows that any multitape Turing machine running in time t can be simulated in only O(√(t log t)) space. This significantly improves upon the O(t/log t) space simulation from Hopcroft et al. 50 years ago. The research leverages a recently discovered space-efficient algorithm for Tree Evaluation by Cook and Mertz, reducing the time simulation problem to a series of implicitly-defined Tree Evaluation instances with favorable parameters. Results imply that bounded fan-in circuits of size s can be evaluated in √s·poly(log s) space, and suggest the existence of problems solvable in O(n) space that require n^(2-ε) time on a multitape Turing machine (for all ε > 0), making slight progress on the P versus PSPACE problem.

Read more

Breakthrough in Optimal Space Complexity for Frequency Moment Estimation

2024-12-29

A paper by Mark Braverman and Or Zamir proves an optimal space lower bound of Ω(log(nε²)/ε²) for estimating frequency moments, where ε = Ω(1/√n). This research solves a long-standing problem in computational complexity, matching the classic Alon-Matias-Szegedy upper bound within a certain range. For smaller values of ε, the paper also introduces an improved algorithm that further refines the space complexity of frequency moment estimation. This breakthrough provides crucial theoretical guidance for stream data processing and algorithm design.

Read more