Oracles and Halting Problems
It is possible to posit the existence of an oracle which computes a non-computable function, such as the answer to the halting problem or some equivalent. A machine with an oracle of this sort is a hypercomputer.
Interestingly, the halting paradox still applies to such machines; although they determine whether particular Turing machines will halt on particular inputs, they cannot determine, in general, if machines equivalent to themselves will halt. This fact creates a hierarchy of machines, called the arithmetical hierarchy, each with a more powerful halting oracle and an even harder halting problem.
Read more about this topic: Oracle Machine
Famous quotes containing the words oracles, halting and/or problems:
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Of the two
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