undecidable
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.79 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Incapable of being algorithmically decided in finite time. For example, a set of strings is undecidable if it is impossible to program a computer (even one with infinite memory) to determine whether or not specified strings are included.
adj
(of a WFF) logically independent from the axioms of a given theory; i.e., that it can never be either proved or disproved (i.e., have its negation proved) on the basis of the axioms of the given theory. (Note: this latter definition is independent of any time bounds or computability issues, i.e., more Platonic.)
Example Sentences
- "The first-order procedure SP differs from the proposi- tional procedure CP°₁ in an essential feature. Namely, CP°₁ always terminates while SP may run forever as we have seen with the example immediately after (3.7). This is not a specific defect of SP. Rather it is known that first-order logic is an undecidable theory while propositional logic is a decidable theory. This means that for the latter there are decision pro- cedures which for any formula decide whether it is valid or not — and CP°₁ in fact is such a decision procedure — while for the former such decision procedures do not exist in princi- ple. Thus SP, according to these results for which the reader is referred to any logic texts such as [End], [DrG] or [Lew], is of the kind which we may expect, it is a semi-decision procedure which confirms if a formula is valid but may run forever for invalid formulas. Therefore, termination by running out of time or space after any finite number of steps will leave the question for the validity of a formula unsettled. [...]"
Etymology
Etymology tree English un- English decide Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom Proto-Italic *-ðlom Proto-Italic *-ðlis Latin -bilis Latin -ābilis Old French -ablebor. Middle English -able English -able English decidable English undecidable From un- + decidable.