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Difference between NP hard and NP complete problem

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Prerequisite: NP-Completeness 

NP Problem: 
The NP problems set of problems whose solutions are hard to find but easy to verify and are solved by Non-Deterministic Machine in polynomial time. 

NP-Hard Problem: 
A Problem X is NP-Hard if there is an NP-Complete problem Y, such that Y is reducible to X in polynomial time. NP-Hard problems are as hard as NP-Complete problems. NP-Hard Problem need not be in NP class.

If every problem of NP can be polynomial time reduced to it called as NP Hard. 

A lot of times takes the particular problem solve and reducing different problems.

example : 

  1.  Hamiltonian cycle . 
  2. optimization problem .
  3. Shortest path 

    NP-Complete Problem: 

A problem X is NP-Complete if there is an NP problem Y, such that Y is reducible to X in polynomial time. NP-Complete problems are as hard as NP problems. A problem is NP-Complete if it is a part of both NP and NP-Hard Problem. A non-deterministic  Turing machine can solve NP-Complete problem in polynomial time. 

A problem is np-complete when it is both np and np hard combines together.

this means np complete problems can be verified in polynomial time.

Example

  1. Decision problems. 
  2. Regular graphs. 

    Difference between NP-Hard and NP-Complete

NP-hard NP-Complete
NP-Hard problems(say X) can be solved if and only if there is a NP-Complete problem(say Y) that can be reducible into X in polynomial time. NP-Complete problems can be solved by a non-deterministic Algorithm/Turing Machine in polynomial time.
To solve this problem, it do not have to be in NP . To solve this problem, it must be both NP and NP-hard problems.
Time is unknown in NP-Hard. Time is known as it is fixed in NP-Hard.
NP-hard is not a decision problem. NP-Complete is exclusively a decision problem.
Not all NP-hard problems are NP-complete. All NP-complete problems are NP-hard
Do not have to be a Decision problem. It is exclusively a Decision problem.
It is optimization problem used. It is Decision problem used.
Example: Halting problem, Vertex cover problem, etc. Example: Determine whether a graph has a Hamiltonian cycle, Determine whether a Boolean formula is satisfiable or not, Circuit-satisfiability problem, etc.

 


Last Updated : 05 Jan, 2023
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