Yes abstraction is beautiful yes?
I agree Allan is entirely corrent in his axiom.
But for reality's sake we can very likely determine if a process will finish
or not.
HKF
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Schiraldi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 2:10 PM
Subject: [freenet-tech] Way Offtopic: The Halting Problem (was: Ideas for a
FreeNet Process)
> > I believe the real axiom is that a process cannot determine itself.
>
> Alan Turing proved that it is impossible to write a program that can scan
> any other program and determine, in a finite amount of time, whether or
not
> the second program will ever halt.
>
> > For example. I am a progem. You write an infinite loop. I determine
that
> > it will be infinite. I've just
> > predicted your program.
>
> I'm not sure what exactly you mean here, but consider this: One of the
great
> unsolved math questions is whether or not there exists an odd perfect
number
> (see www.primepuzzles.net/conjectures/conj_011.htm). It is trivial to
write
> a function which takes a number and determines whether or not it is
> perfect. Let's call that is_perfect().
>
> Now, here's a program:
>
> void
> my_func (void) {
> int i = 1;
> while (!is_perfect (i))
> i += 2;
> }
>
> Does this program halt? (Neglect the fact that after about 2^30
iterations,
> the int will overflow) If you can positively answer yes or no, you'll have
> solved a problem that has stumped mathematicians since Euclid.
>
> --
> Mike Schiraldi
> Verisign Applied Research
>
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