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Happy Anniversary!

Posted By: Rich Munitz
Date: Wednesday, 13 October 2010, at 4:22 p.m.

In Response To: Happy Anniversary! (Bob Koca)

I'm not sure what assertion you are asking to be proven.

If it is the assertion that there exist truths in this universe that are unknowable, then the "halting problem" in computer science is an example of a proof of this assertion.

For those not familiar with this problem, it is roughly the following.

Any computer program when provided with an input will either run to completion (halt) or run forever. The assertion that a program P will run forever on input X is either true or false. So the question is whether it is possible to take an arbitrary program P and arbitrary input X and prove that the assertion is true (or false).

The answer is that it can be shown that there exist programs for which the truth of the halting question cannot be determined in finite time (i.e. the truth exists but is unknowable).

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