The Diagonal Method and Hypercomputation.

The diagonal method is often used to show that Turing machines cannot solve their own halting problem. There have been several recent attempts to show that this method also exposes either contradiction or arbitrariness in other theoretical models of computation which claim to be able to solve the ha...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol. 56; no. 1; pp. 147 - 157
Main Authors: Ord, Toby, Kieu, Tien D.
Format: Article
Published: University of Chicago Press Mar2005
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=16571426&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: hlh
    uiTerm: 16571426
    longDbName: Humanities International Complete
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        00070882
        BPL
      jtl: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
      issn: 00070882
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: Mar2005
      vid: 56
      iid: 1
      pid: 415
      pub: University of Chicago Press
    artinfo:
      ui:
        16571426
        10.1093/phisci/axi108
      ppf: 147
      ppct: 10
      formats:
      tig:
        atl: The Diagonal Method and Hypercomputation.
      aug:
        au:
          Ord, Toby
          Kieu, Tien D.
        affil:
          Department of Philosophy University of Melbourne Parkville 3010 Australia
          Centre for Atom Optics and Ultrafast Spectroscopy Swinburne University of Technology Hawthorn 3122 Australia
      su:
        Turing machines
        High performance computing
        Supercomputers
        Machine theory
        Scientific method
        Mathematical models
      sug:
        subj:
          Turing machines
          High performance computing
          Supercomputers
          Machine theory
          Scientific method
          Mathematical models
      ab: The diagonal method is often used to show that Turing machines cannot solve their own halting problem. There have been several recent attempts to show that this method also exposes either contradiction or arbitrariness in other theoretical models of computation which claim to be able to solve the halting problem for Turing machines. We show that such arguments are flawed—a contradiction only occurs if a type of machine can compute its own diagonal function. We then demonstrate why such a situation does not occur for the methods of hypercomputation under attack, and why it is unlikely to occur for any other serious methods.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
    refInfo:
    copyright:
      @attributes:
        flag: Y
      dt:
        @attributes:
          year: 2005
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N