Episodes
In this video, the instructor shares his approach for helping students move forward when they get stuck during problem solving.
Published 03/02/16
In this video, the instructor describes the optional problem-solving sessions associated with the course. He suggests that these sessions provide an opportunity for students to advance the field and to develop a sense of camaraderie with one another.
Published 03/02/16
In this video, the instructor discusses the rationale behind his pedagogical decision to have students to scribe lecture notes. He also shares his insights about providing feedback on students' written notes.
Published 03/02/16
In this video, the instructor discusses the final projects in the course, including the purpose of the projects, how students approach them collaboratively, students' presentations of their projects, and the feedback he provides.
Published 03/02/16
In this video, the instructor discusses how he administered a survey to learn about students' backgrounds and interests coming in to the class, and how he used the results to refine the course design.
Published 03/02/16
In this video, the instructor discusses the role of fun in research, teaching and learning. He shares that fun often makes problems accessible and provides an entryway for students into hardness proofs.
Published 03/02/16
In this video, the instructor shares why he developed this course about hardness proofs and what makes it unique.
Published 03/02/16
In this video, the instructor shares what he would do differently if he were to teach the course again, including spotlighting some of the more interesting subtopics within the vast field of approximation algorithms.
Published 03/02/16
In this lecture, Professor Demaine continues deriving strong NP-hardness reductions from 3-partition, and weak NP-hardness reductions from 2-partition.
Published 08/14/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine explains hardness of problems that can be solved in polynomial time, but where that polynomial seems to be substantially superlinear.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine gives examples of real bounded games proved PSPACE-complete via constraint logic.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine describes counting versions of NP problems.
Published 05/07/15
In the second of two guest lectures by Prof. Constantinos Daskalakis of CSAIL, Daskalakis talks about examples of PPAD-completeness reductions, as well as other classes related to PPAD.
Published 05/07/15
In this first of two guest lectures by Prof. Constantinos Daskalakis of CSAIL, Daskalakis talks about the class PPAD, illustrating connections to economic game theory, topology, and graph theory.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine explains P-completeness, and how it can be undecidable to determine winning strategies in games.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine introduces planar versions of 3SAT, proving these versions are NP-hard.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine begins a series on inapproximability, proving the impossibility of approximation algorithms.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine proves hardness for game with fewer or more than one player.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine explains gap problems, using the PCP theorem.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine explains the concept of circuit SAT.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine describes constraint logic.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine proves the NP-hardess of various video games.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine explains L-reductions to prove various problems APX-complete, introduces a characterization theorem for approximability, and mentions the approximation spectrum.
Published 05/07/15
In this lecture, Professor Demaine describes strong bounds on running time, assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis.
Published 05/07/15