"Babai pioneered a new understanding of the notion of mathematical proof.
This notion helped usher in a new era in combinatorial optimization in which
the ability to prove hardness of approximation became the norm. This notion of proof combined interaction and randomness, and was formalized by
both Babai’s Arthur-Merlin games and an independent paper by Goldwasser,
Micali, and Rackoff. This shift in our view of the millennia-old concept of
mathematical proof has been one of the most fruitful developments in computer science. .................It was Babai’s seminal work with Fortnow and Lund…
This notion helped usher in a new era in combinatorial optimization in which
the ability to prove hardness of approximation became the norm. This notion of proof combined interaction and randomness, and was formalized by
both Babai’s Arthur-Merlin games and an independent paper by Goldwasser,
Micali, and Rackoff. This shift in our view of the millennia-old concept of
mathematical proof has been one of the most fruitful developments in computer science. .................It was Babai’s seminal work with Fortnow and Lund…
