Ryan Williams: c^n breakthroughs made "brute force is optimal" already false
rrwilliams · x · 2026-10-28
Asked why anyone should believe ETH beyond "smart people tried and failed," Ryan Williams points out that "nothing better than brute force exists" was already false — a series of papers achieved c^n for ever-smaller c < 2. He notes known extensions like resolution-based methods were proven to obey ETH, but he didn't find those compelling reasons, which is why he set out to refute SETH first. Thread continues with a follow-up on whether PPSZ satisfies those lower-bound conditions.
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