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Questions tagged [halting-problem]

Questions concerning the Halting problem which is to decide whether a given a program halts on a given input.

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Why, really, is the Halting Problem so important?

I don't understand why the Halting Problem is so often used to dismiss the possibility of determining whether a program halts. The Wikipedia article correctly explains that a deterministic machine with finite memory will either halt or repeat a…
Brent
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Is there any concrete relation between Gödel's incompleteness theorem, the halting problem and universal Turing machines?

I've always thought vaguely that the answer to the above question was affirmative along the following lines. Gödel's incompleteness theorem and the undecidability of the halting problem both being negative results about decidability and established…
Marc van Leeuwen
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Human computing power: Can humans decide the halting problem on Turing Machines?

We know the halting problem (on Turing Machines) is undecidable for Turing Machines. Is there some research into how well the human mind can deal with this problem, possibly aided by Turing Machines or general purpose computers? Note: Obviously, in…
bitmask
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What are the simplest examples of programs that we do not know whether they terminate?

The halting problem states there is no algorithm that will determine if a given program halts. As a consequence, there should be programs about which we can not tell whether they terminate or not. What are the simplest (smallest) known examples of…
MaiaVictor
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Is there a more intuitive proof of the halting problem's undecidability than diagonalization?

I understand the proof of the undecidability of the halting problem (given for example in Papadimitriou's textbook), based on diagonalization. While the proof is convincing (I understand each step of it), it is not intuitive to me in the sense that…
user118967
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Is there a connection between the halting problem and thermodynamic entropy?

Alan Turing proposed a model for a machine (the Turing Machine, TM) which computes (numbers, functions, etc.) and proved the Halting Theorem. A TM is an abstract concept of a machine (or engine if you like). The Halting Theorem is an impossibility…
Nikos M.
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Is the halting problem decidable for pure programs on an ideal computer?

It's fairly simple to understand why the halting problem is undecidable for impure programs (i.e., ones that have I/O and/or states dependent on the machine-global state); but intuitively, it seems that a pure program's halting on an ideal computer…
Jules
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Algorithm to solve Turing's "Halting problem‍​"

"Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs cannot exist" Can I find a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for some possible program input pairs? Can I find a…
user11775
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Are there programs that never halt and have no non-termination proof?

Like black holes in computer science. We can only know they exist but when we have one of them we will never know it's one of them.
Otakar Molnár López
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Is possible to prove undecidability of the halting problem in Coq?

I was watching the "Five Stages of Accepting Constructive Mathematics" by Andrej Bauer and he says that there is two kinds of proof by contradiction (or two things that mathematicians call proof by contradiction): Assume $P$ is false... blah blah…
Rafael Castro
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Could the Halting Problem be "resolved" by escaping to a higher-level description of computation?

I've recently heard an interesting analogy which states that Turing's proof of the undecidability of the halting problem is very similar to Russell's barber paradox. So I got to wonder: mathematicians did eventually manage to make set theory…
H2CO3
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Does a never-halting machine always loop?

A Turing machine that returns to a previously encountered state with its read/write head on the same cell of the exact same tape will be caught in a loop. Such a machine doesn't halt. Can someone give an example of a never-halting machine that…
hollow7
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Can a program exist that halts only if it can prove that it doesn't halt?

Consider a program P that enumerates possible proofs in some proof system and halts only if it finds a valid proof that P does not halt. Clearly no such proof exists, or the program would eventually find it, causing a contradiction. But that…
Silver
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Halting problem theory vs. practice

It is often asserted that the halting problem is undecidable. And proving it is indeed trivial. But that only applies to an arbitrary program. Has there been any study regarding classes of programs humans usually make? It can sometimes be easy to…
Jack Fleming
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Is halting problem computable for particular inputs/assumptions

From my understanding of the proof that halting problem is not computable, this problem is not computable because if we have a program P(x) which computes if the program x halts or not, we got a paradox when giving P as an input to the same P,…
ela
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