Does P = NP? A proof has come out saying yes.
The P = NP question is a longstanding question in computer science. The informal intuition is, if a proposed solution to a problem can be quickly checked to see if it is correct or incorrect, can solutions be generated just as quickly?
More formally, "quickly" means polynomial time while "not quickly" means exponential time or anything larger (such as factorial time) ("polynomial time" in turn meaning the time it takes is proportional to a polynomial of the size of the input data), and "NP" meaning "nondeterministic polynomial time" means solutions can be verified quickly. P = NP means a proposed solution that can be checked in polynomial time can be generated in polynomial time. P != NP means it can't.
Most computer scientists believe P != NP. In fact the entire field of cryptography is more or less built on this assumption.
I looked at the "proof" (using quote marks for now since it has not been verified or falsified by other mathematicians as far as I know yet). It is 10 pages and starts with the familiar Turing machine but quickly goes over my head.
