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Glite Dictionary
🧮 Cannot be solved 🤔 Impossible to decide
undecidability

undecidability

9.9
A situation when no computer method can tell if a statement is true or false
  • noun
  • /ˌʌndɪˈsaɪdəˌbɪlɪti/
  • Specialized
translation icon : indecidibilidad
  • Computer scientists often encounter undecidability when dealing with algorithms that cannot determine outcomes for certain inputs.

And I think at the end of that you'll get some real feeling for just what the word undecidability actually means.

Examples

  • This undecidability has intriguing ramifications, for if the garden figures the dispossession of history from time and discloses a non-immanent being-in-common, to what extent can a similar calling forth of community be ascribed to Jarman's text?

    Academic text (1999)

  • There we can, for example, show that sufficiently complex algebras all have the Gödel property, undecidability, which means that there are no sufficiently complex algebras without it.

    Blog text (14)

  • And I think at the end of that you'll get some real feeling for just what the word undecidability actually means.

    Computerphile

  • Metatheories and foundational thoughts are rejected in favor of microexplanations and undecidability.

    Academic text (1993)

  • The juxtaposition, however, does not lead to undecidability; it does not indicate that Baudelaire changed his mind; and (unless, like Wall, we understand parody as being potentially all-pervasive) it does not produce a double-edged parody.

    Academic text (1995)

  • In mathematics, the concept of undecidability highlights problems that cannot be definitively solved or proven true or false.

  • The study of undecidability reveals that some mathematical questions do not have clear answers within established formal systems.

Synonyms

unsolvability
vsundecidability
9.3

A situation when a problem or question has no answer

is about inability to determine truth by algorithm or formal proof
insolubility
vsundecidability
9.9

A problem that people cannot solve

is focused on algorithmic or formal inability to decide truth

How Hard

undecidability
  • Specialized
9.9
intractability
  • Specialized
9.9
hardness
5.3
solvability
1 5.5
tractability
  • Specialized
8.3

Surface Forms

undecidability singular
undecidabilities plural

Morphology

undecidability = undecidable (semi-transparent) = un + decide + able + ity

The structure un- + decidable + -ity is clear, but the technical sense ('no algorithm can decide') is a specialized narrowing not obvious to general learners.

Etymology

Undecidability splits into un- 'not', decide 'to choose', and -ability 'able to'. In mathematics and computer science it means a problem is 'not able to be decided' because no rule or step-by-step method can always say whether it is true or false.