From 1adb3225feb9f2151cd94bb573c587a6197d7b40 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Edgar Bering <ebering@caffeine.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:39:59 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] egrant

---
 events.xml | 27 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+)

diff --git a/events.xml b/events.xml
index e956ed1..74e0299 100644
--- a/events.xml
+++ b/events.xml
@@ -4,6 +4,33 @@
 <eventdefs>
 
 <!-- Winter 2010 -->
+<eventitem date="2010-03-16" time="4:30 PM" room="MC5158" title="Approximation Hardness and the Unique Games Conjecture">
+  
+    <short><p>The fifth installment in CS10: Undergraduate Seminars in CS, features CSC member Elyot Grant introducing the theory of approximation algorithms. Fun times and a lack of gruesome math are promised.
+</p></short>
+  
+  
+    <abstract><p>The theory of NP-completeness suggests that some problems in CS are inherently hard—that is, 
+there is likely no possible algorithm that can efficiently solve them.  Unfortunately, many of 
+these problems are ones that people in the real world genuinely want to solve!  How depressing!  
+What can one do when faced with a real-life industrial optimization problem whose solution may 
+save millions of dollars but is probably impossible to determine without trillions of 
+years of computation time?
+</p><p>One strategy is to be content with an approximate (but provably "almost ideal") solution, and from 
+here arises the theory of approximation algorithms.  However, this theory also has a depressing side, 
+as many well-known optimization problems have been shown to be provably hard to approximate well.
+</p><p>This talk shall focus on the depressing.  We will prove that various optimization problems (such as 
+traveling salesman and max directed disjoint paths) are impossible to approximate well unless P=NP.  
+These proofs are easy to understand and are REALLY COOL thanks to their use of very slick reductions.
+</p><p>We shall explore many NP-hard optimization problems and state the performance of the best known 
+approximation algorithms and best known hardness results.  Tons of open problems will be mentioned, 
+including the unique games conjecture, which, if proven true, implies the optimality of many of the 
+best known approximation algorithms for NP-complete problems like MAX-CUT and INDEPENDENT SET.
+</p><p>I promise fun times and no gruesome math.  Basic knowledge of graph theory and computational 
+complexity might help but is not required.
+</p></abstract>
+  
+</eventitem>
 <eventitem date="2010-03-12" time="7:00 PM" room="Comfy Lounge" title="A Party of Code">
   
     <short><p>A fevered night of code, friends, fun, energy drinks, and the CSC.