# Sat vs 3Sat

By [thepleb](https://paragraph.com/@aiscb) · 2024-01-28

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1.  **SAT:** In the general SAT problem, a clause can have any number of literals. A literal is a variable or its negation, and a clause is a disjunction (OR) of literals. There are no restrictions on the number of literals that can appear in a single clause. This flexibility means that some clauses could have just one literal, while others could have many.
    
2.  **3-SAT:** In contrast, in the 3-SAT problem, each clause is restricted to have exactly three literals. This is a specific and more restricted version of the SAT problem. Despite this restriction, 3-SAT remains NP-complete, which means it is still a computationally challenging problem. The constraint of having exactly three literals in each clause is what differentiates 3-SAT from the more general SAT problem.
    

These problems are fundamental in theoretical computer science, especially in studies related to computational complexity, algorithms, and logic.

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*Originally published on [thepleb](https://paragraph.com/@aiscb/sat-vs-3sat)*