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Chapters 11 and 12 Decision Problems and Undecidability * 11.1 Decision Problems A decision problem consists of a set of questions whose answers are either yes or no is undecidable if no algorithm that can solve the problem; otherwise, it is decidable The Church-Turing thesis asserts that a decision problem P has a solution if, and only if, there exists a TM that determines the answer for every p ? P if no such TM exists, the problem is said to be undecidable An unsolvable problem is a problem such that there does not exist any TM that can solve the problem * Decision Problems Algorithm L that solves a decision problem should be effective, i.e., Complete: L produces the correct answer (yes/no) to each question Mechanistic: L consists of a finite sequence of instructions Deterministic: L produces the same result for the same input The Church-Turing Thesis for Computable Functions: A function f is effective, i.e., effectively computable, if and only if there is a TM that computes f. * 11.2 Recursive Languages Defn. A recursive language L is a formal language for which there exists a TM that will halt and accept an input string in L, and halt and reject, otherwise. Example 11.2.1 The decision problem of determining whether a natural number is a perfect square (represented by using the string an) is decidable. Example 11.2.2 The decision problem of determining whether there is a path P from node vi to a node vj in a directed graph G (with nodes v1, …, vn) using a NTM M with 2-tape is decidable. G is represented over {0, 1} as Encode vk (1 ? k ? n) as 1k+1, and arc (vs,vt) as 1s+1 0 1t+1 Separate each arc by 00; three 0’s separate G and vi and vj Write vi (as vs) on tape 2 and consider each arc (vs,vt) in G M accepts, if vt = vj , or rejects if vt has been visited/no edge * The halting problem: Given an arbitrary TM M with input alphabet ? and a string w ? ?*, will the computation of M with w halt? Th