Re:New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-let...
by harveywi on Monday January 30, 2017 @10:20AM
(#13521829)
Minor detail, but the undecidability Halting Problem strictly requires an infinite tape (infinite storage space).
In "practice", if you could call it such, a computer with limited memory becomes a "linear bounded automaton" and the Halting Problem is decidable; cf. http://cs.stackexchange.com/q/22925
Of course, big enough memory can mean that it can be impossible to detect termination before the heat death of the universe - we are talking theory here.
Re:New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-let...
by beaconstudios on Monday January 30, 2017 @05:43AM
(#13520001)
actually, the proof for the halting problem is rather esoteric in its demonstration. The claim isn't that you can't predict when most programs will end, but that it's possible to construct a scenario where the program goes out of its way to be unpredictable by running the prediction algorithm on itself and inverting the answer using an infinite loop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem