In mathematics, a proof of impossibility is a proof that demonstrates that a particular problem cannot be solved as described in the claim, or that a particular set of problems cannot be solved in general. Such a case is also known as a negative proof, proof of an impossibility theorem, or negative result. Proofs of impossibility often are the resolutions to decades or centuries of work attempting to find a solution, eventually proving that there is no solution. Proving that something is impossible is usually much harder than the opposite task, as it is often necessary to develop a proof that works in general, rather than to just show a particular example. Impossibility theorems are usually expressible as negative existential propositions or universal propositions in logic.
The irrationality of the square root of 2 is one of the oldest proofs of impossibility. It shows that it is impossible to express the square root of 2 as a ratio of two integers. Another consequential proof of impossibility was Ferdinand von Lindemann's proof in 1882, which showed that the problem of squaring the circle cannot be solved because the number π is transcendental (i.e., non-algebraic), and that only a subset of the algebraic numbers can be constructed by compass and straightedge. Two other classical problems—trisecting the general angle and doubling the cube—were also proved impossible in the 19th century, and all of these problems gave rise to research into more complicated mathematical structures.
A problem that arose in the 16th century was creating a general formula using radicals to express the solution of any polynomial equation of fixed degree k, where k ≥ 5. In the 1820s, the Abel–Ruffini theorem (also known as Abel's impossibility theorem) showed this to be impossible, using concepts such as solvable groups from Galois theory—a new sub-field of abstract algebra.
Some of the most important proofs of impossibility found in the 20th century were those related to undecidability, which showed that there are problems that cannot be solved in general by any algorithm, with one of the more prominent ones being the halting problem.
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In computability theory and computational complexity theory, an undecidable problem is a decision problem for which it is proved to be impossible to construct an algorithm that always leads to a correct yes-or-no answer. The halting problem is an example: it can be proven that there is no algorithm that correctly determines whether arbitrary programs eventually halt when run. A decision problem is a question which, for every input in some infinite set of inputs, answers "yes" or "no"..
Hilbert's tenth problem is the tenth on the list of mathematical problems that the German mathematician David Hilbert posed in 1900. It is the challenge to provide a general algorithm which, for any given Diophantine equation (a polynomial equation with integer coefficients and a finite number of unknowns), can decide whether the equation has a solution with all unknowns taking integer values. For example, the Diophantine equation has an integer solution: . By contrast, the Diophantine equation has no such solution.
In computability theory a variety of combinatorial systems are encountered (word problems, production systems) that exhibit undecidability properties. Here we seek such structures in the realm of Analysis, more specifically in the area of Fourier Analysis. ...
We establish two ergodic theorems which have among their corollaries numerous classical results from multiplicative number theory, including the Prime Number Theorem, a theorem of Pillai-Selberg, a theorem of Erd\H{o}s-Delange, the mean value theorem of Wi ...
When can we reason about the neutrality of a network based on external observations? We prove conditions under which it is possible to (a) detect neutrality violations and (b) localize them to specific links, based on external observations. Our insight is ...