[FOM] P NP buzz

[Timothy Y. Chow]

Harvey Friedman wrote:
> Here's my question. Is Vinay the most accomplished and credentialed  
> person (at the time of the circulation) to circulate an outright  
> public claim to have solved P vs. NP?

If I understand the question correctly, Ted Swart at the University of 
Guelph might be a candidate.  He circulated a purported proof of P = NP 
via linear programming in 1986.  Soon thereafter Mihalis Yannakakis 
published a paper (STOC 1988) with a very general result that there cannot 
be a symmetric linear program for the TSP with subexponential size, and 
that in particular Swart's approach could not be rescued.

If you really want to chase down the answer to your question then you 
could peruse Woeginger's list to see if anybody "credentialed" catches 
your eye: http://www.win.tue.nl/~gwoegi/P-versus-NP.htm

Tim