Chapter 7

Simulations and Reductions

Abstract

In complexity theory, it is common to prove results by reduction from one problem to another. For example, textbooks typically prove from first principles that satisfiability (SAT) is NP complete. To show that another problem is also NP-complete, it is enough to show that SAT (or some other problem known to be NP-complete) reduces to the problem in question. Reductions are appealing because they are often technically simpler than proving NP completeness directly.

Reductions can also be applied in distributed computing. This chapter describes a general technique for showing that a protocol in one model can be transformed into a protocol in another model. In addition, we describe a specific transformation, ...

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