Essentially Undecidable
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Essentially Undecidable
In logic, a true/false decision problem is decidable if there exists an effective method for deriving the correct answer. Zeroth-order logic (propositional logic) is decidable, whereas first-order and higher-order logic are not. Logical systems are decidable if membership in their set of logically valid formulas (or theorems) can be effectively determined. A theory (set of sentences closed under logical consequence) in a fixed logical system is decidable if there is an effective method for determining whether arbitrary formulas are included in the theory. Many important problems are undecidable, that is, it has been proven that no effective method for determining membership (returning a correct answer after finite, though possibly very long, time in all cases) can exist for them. Decidability of a logical system Each logical system comes with both a syntactic component, which among other things determines the notion of provability, and a semantic component, which determines t ...
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Logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises in a topic-neutral way. When used as a countable noun, the term "a logic" refers to a logical formal system that articulates a proof system. Formal logic contrasts with informal logic, which is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. While there is no general agreement on how formal and informal logic are to be distinguished, one prominent approach associates their difference with whether the studied arguments are expressed in formal or informal languages. Logic plays a central role in multiple fields, such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics. Logic studies arguments, which consist of a set of premises together with a conclusion. Premises and conclusions are usually un ...
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Gödel's Completeness Theorem
Gödel's completeness theorem is a fundamental theorem in mathematical logic that establishes a correspondence between semantic truth and syntactic provability in first-order logic. The completeness theorem applies to any first-order theory: If ''T'' is such a theory, and φ is a sentence (in the same language) and every model of ''T'' is a model of φ, then there is a (first-order) proof of φ using the statements of ''T'' as axioms. One sometimes says this as "anything universally true is provable". This does not contradict Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which shows that some formula φu is unprovable although true in the natural numbers, which are a particular model of a first-order theory describing them — φu is just false in some other model of the first-order theory being considered (such as a non-standard model of arithmetic for Peano arithmetic). It makes a close link between model theory that deals with what is true in different models, and proof theory tha ...
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Theory (mathematical Logic)
In mathematical logic, a theory (also called a formal theory) is a set of sentences in a formal language. In most scenarios, a deductive system is first understood from context, after which an element \phi\in T of a deductively closed theory T is then called a theorem of the theory. In many deductive systems there is usually a subset \Sigma \subseteq T that is called "the set of axioms" of the theory T, in which case the deductive system is also called an "axiomatic system". By definition, every axiom is automatically a theorem. A first-order theory is a set of first-order sentences (theorems) recursively obtained by the inference rules of the system applied to the set of axioms. General theories (as expressed in formal language) When defining theories for foundational purposes, additional care must be taken, as normal set-theoretic language may not be appropriate. The construction of a theory begins by specifying a definite non-empty ''conceptual class'' \mathcal, the element ...
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Sequent
In mathematical logic, a sequent is a very general kind of conditional assertion. : A_1,\,\dots,A_m \,\vdash\, B_1,\,\dots,B_n. A sequent may have any number ''m'' of condition formulas ''Ai'' (called " antecedents") and any number ''n'' of asserted formulas ''Bj'' (called "succedents" or "consequents"). A sequent is understood to mean that if all of the antecedent conditions are true, then at least one of the consequent formulas is true. This style of conditional assertion is almost always associated with the conceptual framework of sequent calculus. Introduction The form and semantics of sequents Sequents are best understood in the context of the following three kinds of logical judgments: Unconditional assertion. No antecedent formulas. * Example: ⊢ ''B'' * Meaning: ''B'' is true. Conditional assertion. Any number of antecedent formulas. Simple conditional assertion. Single consequent formula. * Example: ''A1'', ''A2'', ''A3'' ⊢ ''B'' * Meaning: IF ''A1'' AND ''A ...
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Ternary Logic
In logic, a three-valued logic (also trinary logic, trivalent, ternary, or trilean, sometimes abbreviated 3VL) is any of several many-valued logic systems in which there are three truth values indicating ''true'', ''false'' and some indeterminate third value. This is contrasted with the more commonly known bivalent logics (such as classical sentential or Boolean logic) which provide only for ''true'' and ''false''. Emil Leon Post is credited with first introducing additional logical truth degrees in his 1921 theory of elementary propositions. The conceptual form and basic ideas of three-valued logic were initially published by Jan Łukasiewicz and Clarence Irving Lewis. These were then re-formulated by Grigore Constantin Moisil in an axiomatic algebraic form, and also extended to ''n''-valued logics in 1945. Pre-discovery Around 1910, Charles Sanders Peirce defined a many-valued logic system. He never published it. In fact, he did not even number the three pages of notes where ...
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Monadic Predicate Calculus
In logic, the monadic predicate calculus (also called monadic first-order logic) is the fragment of first-order logic in which all relation symbols in the signature are monadic (that is, they take only one argument), and there are no function symbols. All atomic formulas are thus of the form P(x), where P is a relation symbol and x is a variable. Monadic predicate calculus can be contrasted with polyadic predicate calculus, which allows relation symbols that take two or more arguments. Expressiveness The absence of polyadic relation symbols severely restricts what can be expressed in the monadic predicate calculus. It is so weak that, unlike the full predicate calculus, it is decidable—there is a decision procedure that determines whether a given formula of monadic predicate calculus is logically valid (true for all nonempty domains). Löwenheim, L. (1915) "Über Möglichkeiten im Relativkalkül," ''Mathematische Annalen'' 76: 447-470. Translated as "On possibilities in th ...
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Type Theory
In mathematics, logic, and computer science, a type theory is the formal presentation of a specific type system, and in general type theory is the academic study of type systems. Some type theories serve as alternatives to set theory as a foundation of mathematics. Two influential type theories that were proposed as foundations are Alonzo Church's typed λ-calculus and Per Martin-Löf's intuitionistic type theory. Most computerized proof-writing systems use a type theory for their foundation. A common one is Thierry Coquand's Calculus of Inductive Constructions. History Type theory was created to avoid a paradox in a mathematical foundation based on naive set theory and formal logic. Russell's paradox, which was discovered by Bertrand Russell, existed because a set could be defined using "all possible sets", which included itself. Between 1902 and 1908, Bertrand Russell proposed various "theories of type" to fix the problem. By 1908 Russell arrived at a "ramified" theory ...
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Second-order Logic
In logic and mathematics, second-order logic is an extension of first-order logic, which itself is an extension of propositional logic. Second-order logic is in turn extended by higher-order logic and type theory. First-order logic quantifies only variables that range over individuals (elements of the domain of discourse); second-order logic, in addition, also quantifies over relations. For example, the second-order sentence \forall P\,\forall x (Px \lor \neg Px) says that for every formula ''P'', and every individual ''x'', either ''Px'' is true or not(''Px'') is true (this is the law of excluded middle). Second-order logic also includes quantification over sets, functions, and other variables (see section below). Both first-order and second-order logic use the idea of a domain of discourse (often called simply the "domain" or the "universe"). The domain is a set over which individual elements may be quantified. Examples First-order logic can quantify over individuals, bu ...
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Boris Trakhtenbrot
Boris (Boaz) Abramovich Trakhtenbrot (russian: Борис Авраамович Трахтенброт, he, בועז טרכטנברוט; 19 February 1921 – 19 September 2016) was a Russian-Israeli mathematician in logic, algorithms, theory of computation, and cybernetics. Biography Trakhtenbrot was born in Brichevo, northern Bessarabia (now Tîrnova, Moldova). He studied at the Moldovan State Pedagogical Institute in Kishinev, Chernivtsi University, and the Ukrainian Academy of Science's Mathematical Institute, completing a Ph.D. at the latter institution in 1950. He worked at Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1964 Trakhtenbrot discovered and proved a fundamental result in theoretical computer science called the gap theorem. He also discovered and proved the theorem in logic, model theory, and computability theory now known as Trakhtenbrot's theorem. After immigrating to Israel in 1981, he became a professor in the Faculty of Exact Sciences at Tel ...
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Signature (logic)
In logic, especially mathematical logic, a signature lists and describes the non-logical symbols of a formal language. In universal algebra, a signature lists the operations that characterize an algebraic structure. In model theory, signatures are used for both purposes. They are rarely made explicit in more philosophical treatments of logic. Definition Formally, a (single-sorted) signature can be defined as a 4-tuple , where ''S''func and ''S''rel are disjoint sets not containing any other basic logical symbols, called respectively * ''function symbols'' (examples: +, ×, 0, 1), * ''relation symbols'' or ''predicates'' (examples: ≤, ∈), * ''constant symbols'' (examples: 0, 1), and a function ar: ''S''func \cup ''S''rel → \mathbb N which assigns a natural number called ''arity'' to every function or relation symbol. A function or relation symbol is called ''n''-ary if its arity is ''n''. Some authors define a nullary (0-ary) function symbol as ''constant s ...
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First-order Logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables over non-logical objects, and allows the use of sentences that contain variables, so that rather than propositions such as "Socrates is a man", one can have expressions in the form "there exists x such that x is Socrates and x is a man", where "there exists''"'' is a quantifier, while ''x'' is a variable. This distinguishes it from propositional logic, which does not use quantifiers or relations; in this sense, propositional logic is the foundation of first-order logic. A theory about a topic is usually a first-order logic together with a specified domain of discourse (over which the quantified variables range), finitely many functions from that domain to itself, finitely many predicates defined on that domain, and a set of ax ...
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Propositional Formula
In propositional logic, a propositional formula is a type of syntactic formula which is well formed and has a truth value. If the values of all variables in a propositional formula are given, it determines a unique truth value. A propositional formula may also be called a propositional expression, a sentence, or a sentential formula. A propositional formula is constructed from simple propositions, such as "five is greater than three" or propositional variables such as ''p'' and ''q'', using connectives or logical operators such as NOT, AND, OR, or IMPLIES; for example: : (''p'' AND NOT ''q'') IMPLIES (''p'' OR ''q''). In mathematics, a propositional formula is often more briefly referred to as a "proposition", but, more precisely, a propositional formula is not a proposition but a formal expression that ''denotes'' a proposition, a formal object under discussion, just like an expression such as "" is not a value, but denotes a value. In some contexts, maintaining the distincti ...
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