Lesson plan

Combinatorial explosion

In mathematics, a combinatorial explosion is the rapid growth of the complexity of a problem due to the way its combinatorics depends on input, constraints and bounds. Combinatorial explosion is sometimes used to justify the intractability of certain problems. Examples of such problems include certain mathematical functions, the analysis of some puzzles and games, and some pathological examples which can be modelled as the Ackermann function.

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Article summary

In mathematics, a combinatorial explosion is the rapid growth of the complexity of a problem due to the way its combinatorics depends on input, constraints and bounds. Combinatorial explosion is sometimes used to justify the intractability of certain problems. Examples of such problems include certain mathematical functions, the analysis of some puzzles and games, and some pathological examples which can be modelled as the Ackermann function.

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Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

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