Consider a set A = {a1, . . . , an} and a collection B1, B2, . . . , Bm of subsets of A (i.e., Bi ⊆ A for each i). We say that a set H ⊆ A is a hitting set for the collection B1, B2, . . . , Bm if H contains at least one element from each Bi – that is, if H ∩ Bi is not empty for each i (so H “hits” all the sets of Bi). We define the Hitting Set Problem as follows. We are given a set A = {a1, . . . , an}, a collection B1, B2, . . . , Bm of subsets of A, and an non-negative integer k. We are asked: is there a hitting set H ⊆ A for B1, B2, . . . , Bm so that the size of H is at most k? Prove that the Hitting Set problem is NP-complete

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To prove that the Hitting Set problem is NPcomplete we need to show two things The Hitting Set problem is in the class NP The Hitting Set problem is N... View the full answer