POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Learning C++ : Re: Learning C++ Server Time
6 Sep 2024 23:23:12 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Learning C++  
From: Kevin Wampler
Date: 12 Dec 2008 13:54:52
Message: <4942b37c$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> ...so it's "undecidable" because you can't always figure out the answer 
> in finite time?

Basically.

A (yes/no) problem is decidable if it's possible to write a program 
which will eventually answer the problem for any given input.  Your 
algorithm will only answer "yes" (ie there is a root), but will fail to 
ever give a "no" answer.

It's the same with the halting problem.  It's trivial to write a program 
which will tell if if another program eventually halts, but impossible 
to always determine when it won't.


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