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Comment by akshayubhat | Hacker News Reader

There are several indicators, the author of the comment seems to be a researcher at an IBM R&D center.

Also the original author removed the paper from him web page. Thus which indicates that he is probably backing out on his claim.

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removing the paper doesn't necessarily mean that at all, he probably just wants finish editing it and getting peer feedback before he releases it officially

Or maybe HP legal told him he couldn't use their web server to host unpublished material...

It would be extremely unwise of HP to shut him down - regardless of whether his proof works out in the end, this is a significant piece of work contributed for the further understanding of hard math problems - which is what HP ideally wants to represent. To say no to endeavours like this would be to say that they have no soul and no will for the enhancement of human knowledge.

"no soul and no will for the enhancement of human knowledge"

Yeah, that's why I wrote "legal" :-)

well he had actually posted an updated version yesterday, so if he had to update it he would put up a not. Regarding the legal question, i don't think it reflect poorly any way on HP Labs. Its not like he is making cranky claims like no one landed on moon etc. etc.

I thought his paper was showing P/=NP which is the already (more generally) accepted theory in computer fields. I'd understand it reflecting poorly if one of HP's researchers was claiming P=NP against the accepted wisdom. It would however reflect great if this guys paper is a proof of P/=NP or even if it's simply a step forward.

He just posted a new version of the draft, and added this blurb to his home page:

"Vinay Deolalikar. P is not equal to NP. 6th August, 2010 (66 pages 10pt, 102 pages 12pt). Manuscript sent on 6th August to several leading researchers in various areas. You can find the current version here. Please note that the final version of the paper is under preparation and will be submitted to journal review."

So no, he doesn't seem to be backing out...

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