Calculus, Real Fewnomials, and P vs NP
Argue Auditorium, Pomona College 610 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA, United StatesWe review a beautiful 17th century result by the philosopher Rene Descartes: a univariate real polynomial with t monomial terms has no more than t-1 positive roots. We then see how one can prove a generalization that counts roots of two bivariate polynomials (with few monomial terms), using nothing more than basic calculus. In other […]