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Concept
Halting problem
Summary
In computability theory, the halting problem is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever. The halting problem is undecidable, meaning that no general algorithm exists that solves the halting problem for all possible program–input pairs.
A key part of the formal statement of the problem is a mathematical definition of a computer and program, usually via a Turing machine. The proof then shows, for any program that might determine whether programs halt, that a "pathological" program , called with some input, can pass its own source and its input to f and then specifically do the opposite of what f predicts g will do. No f can exist that handles this case, thus showing undecidability. This proof is significant to practical computing efforts, defining a class of applications which no programming invention can possibly perform perfectly.
The halting problem is a decision problem about properties of computer programs on a fixed Turing-complete model of computation, i.e., all programs that can be written in some given programming language that is general enough to be equivalent to a Turing machine. The problem is to determine, given a program and an input to the program, whether the program will eventually halt when run with that input. In this abstract framework, there are no resource limitations on the amount of memory or time required for the program's execution; it can take arbitrarily long and use an arbitrary amount of storage space before halting. The question is simply whether the given program will ever halt on a particular input.
For example, in pseudocode, the program
while (true) continue
does not halt; rather, it goes on forever in an infinite loop. On the other hand, the program
print "Hello, world!"
does halt.
While deciding whether these programs halt is simple, more complex programs prove problematic. One approach to the problem might be to run the program for some number of steps and check if it halts.
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Ontological neighbourhood
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Related concepts (52)
Computable function
Computable functions are the basic objects of study in computability theory. Computable functions are the formalized analogue of the intuitive notion of algorithms, in the sense that a function is computable if there exists an algorithm that can do the job of the function, i.e. given an input of the function domain it can return the corresponding output. Computable functions are used to discuss computability without referring to any concrete model of computation such as Turing machines or register machines.
Turing reduction
In computability theory, a Turing reduction from a decision problem to a decision problem is an oracle machine which decides problem given an oracle for (Rogers 1967, Soare 1987). It can be understood as an algorithm that could be used to solve if it had available to it a subroutine for solving . The concept can be analogously applied to function problems. If a Turing reduction from to exists, then every algorithm for can be used to produce an algorithm for , by inserting the algorithm for at each place where the oracle machine computing queries the oracle for .
Computability theory
Computability theory, also known as recursion theory, is a branch of mathematical logic, computer science, and the theory of computation that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing degrees. The field has since expanded to include the study of generalized computability and definability. In these areas, computability theory overlaps with proof theory and effective descriptive set theory.