If you aren’t aware, there was recently a proof published by a researcher at HP Labs that asserted that P != NP. Although I did not give anything more than a cursory glance at the paper, I know (from summaries) that it leverages principles from physics.

I can leverage something unrelated to complexity theory to prove that P = NP! Suppose we take some NP-complete problem R. Let’s assume that there are a finite number of particles in the universe–upper bounded by something incredibly unreal like 1050; and let’s assume that there is a finite amount of time in the universe–also upper bounded by something unreal like 1050 years.

Then there exists a constant K such that no instance of R exceeds K in time. Therefore, R is upper-bounded by K–perhaps the number of years of the universe. Since all NP-complete problems can be reduced to each other, we have proven that all NP-complete problems are bounded by K (or some constant factor of it). Since, with large enough inputs, both a problem in P and NP are upper bounded by the same “universal constant”.

Since there is one thing that bounds both classes of problems, they are equivalent. Therefore, P = NP.

Disclaimer: THIS IS A JOKE.