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Questions tagged [decidability]

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60 votes
6 answers
7k views

Has decidability got something to do with primes?

Note: I have modified the question to make it clearer and more relevant. That makes some of references to the old version no longer hold. I hope the victims won't be furious over this. Motivation: ...
abcdxyz's user avatar
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16 votes
3 answers
1k views

Is Multilinear Hilbert's tenth problem version undecidable?

A multilinear polynomial $f\in\mathbb Z[x_1,\dots,x_t]$ has terms only of form $$b\prod_{i=1}^tx_i^{a_i}$$ where $a_i\in\{0,1\}$ and $b\in\mathbb Z$. Is there no general purpose algorithm for ...
Turbo's user avatar
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10 votes
2 answers
1k views

Decidability of periodic tilings of the plane

I'm interested in tilings of the plane by squares, with labels on the edges. It's well known that (1) the question "can one tile the plane with the following finite set of tiles?" is undecidable, and (...
grok's user avatar
  • 2,519
39 votes
3 answers
5k views

For which Millennium Problems does undecidable -> true?

Three good answers were received — by Alex Gavrilov, Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen, and Terry Tao — and the bounty has been awarded (somewhat arbitrarily) to Alex Gavrilov. The answers ...
37 votes
4 answers
2k views

Is the field of constructible numbers known to be decidable?

By the field of constructible numbers I mean the union of all finite towers of real quadratic extensions beginning with $\mathbb{Q}$. By decidable I mean the set of first order truths in this field, ...
Colin McLarty's user avatar
36 votes
3 answers
2k views

Is it decidable to check if an element has finite order or not?

Suppose we have a finitely presented group $G$ with decidable word problem. Is it decidable to check whether a given element $x\in G$ has finite order or infinite?
Al Tal's user avatar
  • 1,281
27 votes
1 answer
678 views

Decidability of equality of expressions built using 1,+,-,*,/,^

Consider expressions built using number $1$, arithmetical operators $+, -, *, /$ and exponentiation ^ (in case of multiple values, the principal value is assumed, the same way as it implemented in ...
Zakharia Stanley's user avatar
21 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is "almost-solvability" of Diophantine equations decidable?

Say that a Diophantine equation is almost-satisfiable iff for each $n\in\mathbb{N}$ it has a solution mod $n$. Trivially genuine satisfiability over $\mathbb{N}$ implies almost-satisfiability, but the ...
Noah Schweber's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
2k views

Are 100% of statements undecidable, in Gödel's numbering? [duplicate]

Gödel's incompleteness theorem shows that there are undecidable statements, i.e., formal logical claims which neither have proofs nor disproofs. In doing so, Gödel famously enumerated all well-formed ...
Milo Moses's user avatar
  • 2,902
13 votes
1 answer
5k views

Is the first-order theory (with =) of real numbers with addition and multiplication complete and decidable?

Due to Andreas Blass's answer to my question "Is the feasibility of a system of nonlinear, non-convex equations (inequalities) decidable?", i have now investigated real closed fields (RCF), because i ...
Gavin's user avatar
  • 165
64 votes
8 answers
6k views

Two (probably) equal real numbers which are not proved to be equal?

Can someone give me a nice example of two computable real numbers which are believed but not proved to be equal? I never really understood the assertion that "the reals do not have decidable equality"...
29 votes
3 answers
3k views

Is the theory of categories decidable?

There are a lot of theorems in basic homological algebra, such as the five lemma or the snake lemma, that seem like they'd be more easily proven by computer than by hand. This led me to consider the ...
25 votes
1 answer
782 views

Decidability of equality of elementary expressions

In the following definition the term expression is to be understood as a finite tree built from formal symbols without any predefined meaning assigned to them. Define the set $\mathcal{E}$ of ...
Vladimir Reshetnikov's user avatar
17 votes
7 answers
2k views

Non-constructive proofs of decidability?

Are there examples of sets of natural numbers that are proven to be decidable but by non-constructive proofs only?
14 votes
2 answers
1k views

Is irreducibility of polynomials $\in \mathbb{Z} [X]$ over $\mathbb{Q}$ an undecidable problem?

There are a number of criteria for determining whether a polynomial $\in \mathbb{Z} [X]$ is irreducible over $\mathbb{Q}$ (the traditional ones being Eisenstein criterion and irreducibility over a ...
SARTHAK GUPTA's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
1k views

Testing whether $e^x+ax^2+bx+c$ has a zero

What is the simple test with exponential polynomials to determine whether $$f(x)=e^x+ax^2+bx+c$$ has a positive zero? This was prompted by the question about discriminants here. We have an ineffective ...
user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
455 views

Is equivalence of functions built from nested exponentiations a decidable problem?

Let $\mathcal{E}$ be the minimal set of symbolic expressions (without any predefined meaning) such that The symbol $x$ is in $\mathcal{E}$, and If expressions $P,Q\in\mathcal{E}$, then the ...
Oksana Gimmel's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
410 views

Reference request: Recent progress on the conjugacy problem for torsion-free one-relator groups?

I am aware that the Spelling Theorem of B. B. Newman implies that one-relator groups with torsion are hyperbolic, and thus have a solvable conjugacy problem. My understanding is that for one-relator ...
jpmacmanus's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
413 views

Is the theory of $(\operatorname{Ord}, <)$ decidable?

Over a sufficiently strong second-order theory (such as Morse-Kelley set theory), it's possible to define the truth of all first-order formulae in the language of sets. This allows us to construct the ...
Jade Vanadium's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is compass and straight edge geometry complete?

Euclid's first three postulates are the basis of compass and straight edge constructions which are as complex as arithmetic. The constructions themselves may be expressed as a formula with each of the ...
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

Could the Jacobian conjecture be undecidable?

Most of us know the Jacobian conjecture. Here's a version below for fixed positive integers $d$ and $n$: $J(d,n)$: If $f: C^n \rightarrow C^n$ is a polynomial map of degree $d$, and if the Jacobian ...
Marty's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
274 views

Is decidability reducible to unique decidability (perhaps in multilinear polynomial situations)?

Given a Diophantine equation it is not decidable if it has integer solution. I. Is there a Diophantine set $\mathcal D_{unique}$ satisfying the properties every member in $\mathcal D_{unique}$ is a ...
Turbo's user avatar
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6 votes
2 answers
1k views

MIP*=RE theorem and its impact on logic and proof theory

In the monumental paper MIP*=RE five authors, Zhengfeng Ji, Anand Natarajan, Thomas Vidick, John Wright, and Henry Yuen, managed to show that two complexity classes: RE and MIP* do in fact coincide. ...
truebaran's user avatar
  • 9,330
6 votes
2 answers
998 views

Are omega-consistent extensions of PA always consistent with each other?

The question is as in the title. In the edit history you can find my attempt to formalise the question, but that was a failure, for reasons stated clearly in the comments. Thus, my question is just: ...
N. Virgo's user avatar
  • 1,344
6 votes
1 answer
291 views

Decidability of completeness in propositional logic

Propositional logic can be presented as in Mendelson’s book, with the sole inference rule of modus ponens, and with the following three axioms: $$B \Rightarrow (C \Rightarrow B)$$ $$(B \Rightarrow (C \...
Sprotte's user avatar
  • 1,075
6 votes
1 answer
485 views

Show that the positive existential theory is undecidable

To show that the positive existential theory of $\mathbb{C}[t, e^{\lambda t} \mid \lambda \in \mathbb{C}]$ in the language $\{+, \cdot , ' , 0 , 1, t\}$ is undecidable we have to prove the following: $...
Mary Star's user avatar
  • 309
5 votes
0 answers
215 views

Integer points of rational function in 2 variables

Is there an algorithm that, given polynomials $P(x)$ and $Q(y)$ with integer coefficients, decides whether there exists integers $x$ and $y$ such that $\frac{P(x)}{Q(y)}$ is an integer? This is a ...
Bogdan Grechuk's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
807 views

Language equivalence between deterministic and non-deterministic counter net

One-Counter Nets (OCNs) are finite-state machines equipped with an integer counter that cannot decrease below zero and cannot be explicitly tested for zero. An OCN $A$ over alphabet $\sum$ accepts a ...
Lionheart's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
117 views

Positive existential theory of $(\mathbb{Z}; +, |_n)$

I am reading a paper and there is the following theorem: Let $n$ be a fixed integer, and $n >1$. Denote divisibility in $\mathbb{Z}[\frac{1}{n}]$ by $|_n$, thus for all $x, y \in \...
Mary Star's user avatar
  • 309
-3 votes
1 answer
531 views

Counter net decidability [closed]

Let one Deterministic Counter Net ($\mathrm{1DCN}$), which is a finite-state automata where every state is complete means all states has transition of all input symbols and their respective weight ...
Lionheart's user avatar