The current consensus is that like Open Questions 1–3, Open Question 4 will also be answered in the positive. In this case, the heuristic argument derives from the observation that if \(\textbf{NC} = \textbf{P}\), then it would be the case that every problem \(X\) possessing a \(O(n^j)\) sequential algorithm could be ‘sped up’ in the sense of admitting a parallel algorithm which requires only time \(O(\log^c(n))\) using \(O(n^{k})\) processors. Even allowing for the case where \(k\) is substantially larger than \(j\), this is thought to be unlikely in virtue of the fact that certain problems in \(\textbf{P}\) appear to be ‘inherently sequential’ in the sense of exhibiting structure which makes them resistant to parallelization. In particular, this is conjectured to be true of \(\textbf{P}\)-complete problems such as determining whether a boolean circuit evaluates to true, or if a formula in the Horn fragment of propositional logic is satisfiable.[32]