Notes

Chapter 12: The Principle of Computational Equivalence

Section 8: Undecidability and Intractability


Undecidability in Mathematica

In choosing functions to build into Mathematica I tried to avoid ones that would often encounter undecidability. And this is why for example there is no built-in function in Mathematica that tries to predict whether a given program will terminate. But inevitably functions like FixedPoint

FixedPoint, ReplaceRepeated
ReplaceRepeated
and FullSimplify
FullSimplify
can run into undecidability—so that ultimately they have to be limited by constructs such as $IterationLimit
$IterationLimit
and TimeConstraint
TimeConstraint
.



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From Stephen Wolfram: A New Kind of Science [citation]