< complexity > A set or property of computational search problem s. A problem is NP-hard if solving it in polynomial time would make it possible to solve all problems in class NP in polynomial time.
Some NP-hard problems are also in NP (these are called " NP-complete "), some are not. If you could reduce an NP problem to an NP-hard problem and then solve it in polynomial time, you could solve all NP problems.
See also computational complexity .
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(1995-04-10)