Questions tagged [turing-completeness]

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Is DNA computation Turing complete?

I have heard DNA being referred to as "code", this is because it is an instruction set which dictates the bodies' properties. However, DNA (as far as I have learned), has no conditional ...
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If a Turing machine can compute any computable problem how can Turing completeness be achived?

To my knowledge a Turing machine is able to compute anything considered computable. I got the definition of Turing completeness from this answer Explain the difference between Turing Complete and ...
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Is Brainf*ck still Turing Complete without I/O?

I've made an interetsing esolang, and to prove Turing completeness, I've written a small Brainf*ck interpreter in it. However, due to the nature of the language, input is rather hard to handle. The ...
1 vote
1 answer
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Why is the Church-Turing thesis not accepted as fact?

I recognize that it has overwhelming consensus at this point, but from what I understand, it's still technically considered "probably true" instead of "definitely true". If we go ...
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2 answers
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Why is Rule 110 considered "weakly" universal?

My supposition is that this is was more or less an automatic designation based on the fact that Rule 110 requires an infinite "background tiling" of the 14-bit sequence ...
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1 vote
1 answer
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Instances of simulating lambda calculus?

There are a ton of resources on the web devoted to proving some esoteric language is Turing complete by simulating arbitrary turing machines. I have an esoteric language I want to prove is complete, ...
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1 vote
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The simplest Turing-complete language

To prove that a new language is Turing-complete the authors need to show that it can simulate any other (already known) Turing-complete language. I wonder what Turing-complete language is the simplest ...
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1 vote
0 answers
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Simple proof that Lisp expresses all computable list functions

Given computable function $f : LispTerm \rightarrow LispTerm$ is it possible to implement it in Lisp? The $LispTerm$ is any term that is constructed using cons, <...
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3 answers
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Is Turing completeness necessary?

Most programming languages are Turing complete (finite memory blah blah blah), and when we design languages this is a goal. But is it really necessary? What algorithms do we typically use that require ...
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1 answer
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How does nondeterminism affect the power of a machine?

For example, in finite-state machines (FSM), the main difference between a deterministic (DFA) and a non-deterministic machine (NFA) is that there are possibly more branches or outputs for each input, ...
1 vote
1 answer
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What exactly does Turing Equivalence mean?

Assume I have a programming language $L$ with well-defined semantics. Showing Turing-completeness is straightforward: if I write a program using $L$ simulating the universal TM, I'm done. What I'm ...
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1 vote
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What are practical applications for markovs algorithm(string rewriting systems)

:) Currently I am browsing through the internet on the hunt for a topic for my bachelors thesis. Whilst being on Reddit I discovered an interesting repo (https://github.com/mxgmn/MarkovJunior) for a ...
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0 answers
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What is the most computationally efficient Turing complete system?

I'm making a program that involves making models of and working with arbitrary systems (or programs). What is the most computationally efficient Turing complete system to model these in? By "...
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1 answer
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What does it mean for a machine language to be Turing-complete?

I was reading the Wikipedia article on Turing completeness, but I was having a hard time putting together all of the concepts. In simple terms, what does it mean for an instruction set to have Turing-...
6 votes
2 answers
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Do all Turing-complete programming languages have to contain infinite loops?

Intuitively, it seems that if a programming language is Turing-complete, then it must contain a program that's an infinite loop. I have formalized this below: Conjecture. There does not exist a set $...
2 votes
1 answer
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is HaltingFuck computable?

A while ago I defined the language HaltingFuck, but I've never been able to figure out its computational class. The language is defined as follows: HaltingFuck is a language very much like Brainfuck, ...
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1 vote
1 answer
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Encoding Turing machine-like behavior using families of sequences of vector spaces and modules. P=NP related

Let $F$ be a field. Suppose we have a machine $T$ that works with words that are elements of $F$, for exmaple $F = \Bbb{Z}/2, \Bbb{Q}$ (using arbitrary precision arithmetic), or $\Bbb{Z}/p$ for a ...
2 votes
0 answers
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Limited number of calling for a decision blackbox to compute all the solutions

I am trying to reduce between a solution problem and a decision version of the same problem. The problem is the orthogonality problem. Given $2$ sets $L$ and $R$, whose size each is $n$ vectors over $\...
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4 votes
1 answer
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How could you encode such a function in lambda calculus?

I just read the definition of lambda calculus. Apparently it's Turing complete, but I tried writing a very simple function and I couldn't: ...
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0 votes
1 answer
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In a rigorous mathematical sense, what is the significance of Turing-completeness?

I know that Turing-completeness is the ability to simulate a Turing machine, and from what I've read, the reason why we should care about Turing-completeness is that it demonstrates that a machine can ...
1 vote
1 answer
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kolmogorov complexity for finite Language?

In lectures my professor proved that there is no Turing machine that for every x it calculates k(x). On the other hand, I saw a claim online that for finite language L there is a Turing machine that ...
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0 answers
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Finite Number of Turing Machines that stop after k steps?

For this question suppose Alphabet for input is {0,1}. Given: L={<M> | M stops on every input after maximum 1000 steps} My professor claimed that there is a ...
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0 answers
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Is the set of all halting programs for all universal Turing machines recursively enumerable?

I understand that one can use dovetailing to recursively enumerate the domain of a UTM. However, I am trying to recursively enumerate the domain of all possible UTM. My starting point was to use a ...
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5 votes
3 answers
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How Turing Machine Can Never Stop?

My professor discussed the following Turing machine M' on input (,x): Generate number n Run M on X, for n steps If M stops, accept I don't understand No.3 If we are running M on input X for final ...
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3 answers
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Are all Turing machines Turing complete?

I have recently been reading up on TOC, and had this thought, which does not seem to be answered explicitly anywhere. They way I have understood it, a system is Turing complete if it can simulate any ...
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12 votes
8 answers
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Can any known sub-Turing-complete model of computation enumerate precisely the set of prime numbers?

I wish there were more, but the subject pretty much captures my whole question. Is there a non-Turing-complete model (some constrained term rewriting system or automaton or what have you) which is ...
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-1 votes
2 answers
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Are there infinitely many distinct implementations of any algorithm using any Turing-complete computational model?

Subject pretty much says it all. My strong impression is that for any algorithm and any choice of programming language or computational model, if it's Turing-complete, then there must be infinitely ...
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11 votes
2 answers
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Is Desmos Turing-Complete?

The graphing calculator Desmos has a ton of functions, and can express any arithmetric formula. What I want to know is, is it Turing-Complete? Desmos supports, among other things: Most mathematical ...
1 vote
1 answer
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Had Conway's Game of Life or any C-A been demonstrated to generate non-repeating pattern?

As we know, Conway's Game of Life is Turing-complete. And Turing-complete systems can be used to calculate irrational numbers such as $\sqrt{2}$, $\pi$, $e$, etc. which have non-repeating digits. So ...
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4 votes
0 answers
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Necessity of encoding for certain models of computation

Consider the following model of computation (from here). Although Fractran is Turing-complete, it assumes that the "user" is able to perform the steps of encoding the input ($2^{n + 1}$) ...
-1 votes
1 answer
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how can turing machines be universal models of computation if they can't perform binary search?

I have searched around and it seems like it is impossible for a Turing machine to implement binary search for an arbitrary sized array. How can a turing machine be called universally computable if it ...
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2 votes
2 answers
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How do we define the term "computation" across models of computation?

How do we define the term computation / computable function generically across models of computation? Beginning with the textbook definitions of: {Linz, Sipser and Kozen} for "computable function&...
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0 votes
1 answer
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EQ_{TM} is not Turing recognizable, but we can reduce A_{TM} to it?

So as I understand $EQ_{TM}$ (problem of deceiding whether two turing machines are equivalent) is not Turing Recognizable (by showing that $A_{TM}$ is reducible to its complement ${NEQ_{TM}}$). But we ...
5 votes
1 answer
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Explain the difference between Turing Complete and Turing Equivalence

I'm not sure if I understand the difference between Turing Complete and Turing Equivalent programming languages. A computational system that can compute every Turing-computable function is called ...
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2 votes
0 answers
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Is the While programming language with bounded number of variables Turing complete?

In our lecture it was proven that WHILE-Programs are turing-complete. In short a WHILE-Program only allows the following: ...
2 votes
1 answer
71 views

Computation equivalence of functional and procedural programming

I'm really interested in the idea of functional programming, it seems like a very modular way of doings things. I've seen some suggestion that functional programming is just as powerful as procedural ...
18 votes
2 answers
6k views

Paradox? Pure Prolog is Turing-complete and yet incapable of expressing list intersection?

Pure Prolog (Prolog limited to Horn clauses only) is Turing-complete. In fact, a single Horn clause is enough for Turing-completeness. However, pure Prolog is incapable of expressing list intersection....
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1 vote
1 answer
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What is the theoretical minimum number of "switches" requried to implement a Turing-complete CPU?

Where "switches" are the basic abstract building blocks for logic gates: vacuum tubes, transistors, magnetic relays, or whatever. We're not counting any switches in the RAM or tape drive ...
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6 votes
2 answers
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Can a total programming language be Turing-complete?

I've seen two answers to this: Wikipedia says no: These restrictions mean that total functional programming is not Turing-complete. And the Wikipedia article cites D.A. Turner as the coiner of "...
0 votes
1 answer
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Is there a #$P$-complete counting problem such that every (valid) instance of its decision version is a Yes-instance?

I want to know whether there is a decision problem, written EasyProblem, satisfying the follow property: For every valid instance $x$, $x$ is a Yes-instance for EasyProblem (if we construct ...
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0 votes
1 answer
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What is the computational class of a pushdown automaton with real values?

Say there is a push-down automata, in this example I'll use a deadfish-like set: +: increase x by 1 0: set x to 0 ...
0 votes
1 answer
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Universal Turing Machine algorithm

First, I learned this based on these facts: Turing machine (TM) will be define with 7-tuple Notation, $M=\langle Q,G,b,S,d,q_0,F\rangle$. Any computation rules that can use to simulate any possible ...
1 vote
2 answers
224 views

Is there a query language variant of Turing Completeness?

By this I mean a theory where you can say Language X is Query Complete so that you know that language is able to do any sort of query? I'm guessing not because some queries would run into things that ...
3 votes
2 answers
152 views

Intuition for Church-Turing thesis for Turing machines

I can very clearly see "why" mu-recursion is a universal model of computation, i.e. why the Church-Turing thesis -- that any physically computable algorithm can be executed with mu-recursion ...
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3 answers
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Is English Turing-complete?

Is English Turing-complete? Intuitively it makes sense that English is Turing complete, since you can talk someone through building a Turing machine. But I also think there might be some operators ...
0 votes
1 answer
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Why is the Halting problem decidable for Goto languages limited on the highest value of constants and variables?

This is taken from an old exam of my university that I am using to prepare myself for the coming exam: Given is a language $\text{Goto}_{17}^c \subseteq \text{Goto}$. This language contains exactly ...
0 votes
1 answer
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Turing-completeness of Goto language with limited constants

This is taken from an old exam of my university that I am using to prepare myself for the coming exam: Given is a language $\text{Goto}_{17} \subseteq \text{Goto}$. This language includes exactly ...
-1 votes
1 answer
24 views

Determine if the following problem is decidable or not : Does the read–write head of a TM with the input w leave the word w?

Determine if the following problem is decidable or not : Does the read–write head of a TM with the given input w leave the word w on the tape?
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1 answer
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Is the Languague which contains all TMs which write the blank symbol at firs by the given input w decidable?

Consider the problem of determining whether a Turing machine M on an input w writes the blank symbol at first. Is this decidable ?
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2 votes
1 answer
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Confusion in Turings proof of the undecidability of the Entscheidungsproblem

I was reading Turing's paper on computable numbers and the Entscheidungsproblem. There is this part of Section 9, Part II that I cannot quite seem to understand. He says: It is pretty straight ...
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