This defeats a few hypotheses that were widely relied on.

strong exponential time hypothesis, and the titular exponential time hypothesis

It's not saying that these problems are easy, but it does demonstrate that they are much easier than previously believed. A decade ago if a human had published this kind of thing, and importantly if it held up, they would be almost certainly a strong candidate for some sort of award(s).

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thatoneengineer 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Assuming P != NP (and that this NP != EXP proof holds up), what's the next most "natural" candidate for how fast NP must grow? This paper appears to show Omega(2^(n/sqrt(log(n))) with a couple additional fudge factors which would be a very disappointing answer.

	▲	jibalt 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This is not a proof that NP != EXP. NP is poly time reduceable to 3SAT + 3SAT is sub-exponential does not imply that NP is sub-exponential -- the cost of the reduction may be enough to push the conjunction from sub-exponential to exponential. Note https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50253213 which explains it better.
	▲	zeroonetwothree 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Definitely puts some weight on the P=NP side of the scale!