Of all the great unsolved problems of mathematics, perhaps the most compelling is the P=NP question. I know there are many mathematicians who will disagree with me on this, but I think that is because they haven't actually considered what the problem involves. On the surface it is fairly simple problem and the implications of it don't seem to extend far beyond computing. The question (posed in a way which avoids any technicalities) asks this: If I am able to test whether something is the solution to a problem, could I have also found that solution in roughly the same period of time?

Any mathematicians or computing dudes reading this are currently weeping at my explanation of the problem, as I have simplified it until I've missed quite a bit of the intricacy, but if you want to come and complain you should remember I'm a pretty big person who is quite tasty with his fists and I think I can take you in a fight - be warned.

The problem, to me at least, goes back to a myth that seems to be prevalent amongst pure mathematicians - that almost every problem has a solution so clear, crisp and beautiful, that if God had a book of theorems*, each of these would be a page in His great book. It's about whether God can look at something and know the answer, without going through all the adding, subtracting and computing that we mortals are required to do.

Again I understand that I have overstepped the mark, but again I refer you to my fighting skills and the fact that I own a lot of very big knives.

Computing dudes often don't see it this way, but they are a different species entirely.

So where am I going with this?

One of the problems that, if solved, would answer this question, is whether there is a perfect way of arranging schedules - you have to be here at this time, I have to be there, there are twenty other people all trying to do the same but we all have to share the rooms in which we need to do our stuff - if you can do this, without going through every possible combination of who goes where and when, you will have proved that P=NP. Scheduling is hard, a really hard problem and as yet nobody knows if there is a clever way to do it above brute force of calculation.

I now there is a better way.

Sadly, I don't know what that way is (I'd be $1,000,000 better off if I did) but I have seen it work - but not last night.

Last night the scheduling failed. I wanted to sleep, Toni wanted to sleep, we all wanted to sleep, but sadly Olias has a cold.

Normally and perhaps impossibly given the complexity of the problem, we all manage to get just enough sleep to keep us sane, but not last night. Last night I was up from 2.00 until 5.00 trying to get Olias to sleep while Toni did the same with Eve. At one point, Isis woke up as well and managed to disturb the whole affair further.

The fact that we normally all get a good night's sleep should be impossible, given all the possible combinations of who wakes up who and when, but we normally do - thus, as far as I can tell, proving that P=NP. Last night, with all the crying and screaming and general miserableness, proves that I may be wrong.

So what have we concluded from this bizarre rambling?

Too little sleep doesn't help with clear thinking. I need more sleep.

Sleep aside dinner was good. Greek food tonight. We had some friends over and I think they enjoyed it too.

I'm really, really tired though. Perhaps I'll watch the relaxing Greek Lullaby video and go to bed.

Sleep well my friends.

* Given the idea of NP Completeness, I would suggest that this problem goes so far as to ask questions of a religious/philosophical nature* - This problem may beyond my capability to accurately describe.

* There are problems harder than these (NP hard for instance)- suggesting that even if we solve P=NP we haven't finished yet - it gets worse - the problem is probably omega incomplete and thus (unless the sum to infinity of the time required to solve everything is bounded) we will never know everything* - but you already knew that didn't you.

*You instinctively know you don't know everything and have therefore already summed the infinite series above and given that the permutations of everything you have considered are massive, you have already solved an NP problem*.

*But at some point the writing gets too small and your eyesight can't keep up and you think there is no point*.

*But you know there is a point or you would be watching Eastenders or repeats of Oprah.

*And HTML can't go any smaller, proving that the internet is no answer to anything - check the page source - HTML cannot, Cannot ever tell the truth

*Which is why I will one day be thrown off a boat and drownded in a similar manner to Hippasus of Metapontum