TITLE: Does knowing a graph has a Hamiltonian Cycle make it easier to find the cycle?
QUESTION [8 upvotes]: Given a simple and connected graph $G=(V, E)$. I know it's NP-Complete to determine if $G$ has a Hamiltonian Cycle (HC). But if we know $G$ indeed contains an HC, can we find the cycle in poly-time?

REPLY [14 votes]: No (or rather: no, unless P=NP).
If it were so, then there would be a concrete polynomial $p$ that bounded the running time of such an algorithm. Therefore you would be able to detect whether a graph has a Hamiltonian cycle by lying to the algorithm: Claim that the graph has a Hamiltonian cycle, run it for $p(n)$ steps, and then check whether by then it has printed a correct cycle or not.