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Re:The 17x17 problem solved by JonnieCache on Monday February 13, 2012 @05:50AM (#3585084)
Yes. The two eventualities are equivalent for this purpose.

Obviously the non-existence of a solution might itself be unprovable, so you'd still have to set some time limit. Oh Gödel, always there to ruin our plans.

Re:The 17x17 problem solved by jules on Monday February 13, 2012 @06:34AM (#3585188)
Obviously if no solution exists then that fact is also provable, since this is a finite problem. The problem is not that it might not be provable. The problem is that verifying a non-existence proof could be hard, because such a proof would probably be something like "I ran my solver for three weeks and it said that there are no solutions".