7,256 research outputs found
Renormalization and Computation II: Time Cut-off and the Halting Problem
This is the second installment to the project initiated in [Ma3]. In the
first Part, I argued that both philosophy and technique of the perturbative
renormalization in quantum field theory could be meaningfully transplanted to
the theory of computation, and sketched several contexts supporting this view.
In this second part, I address some of the issues raised in [Ma3] and provide
their development in three contexts: a categorification of the algorithmic
computations; time cut--off and Anytime Algorithms; and finally, a Hopf algebra
renormalization of the Halting Problem.Comment: 28 page
Complexity vs Energy: Theory of Computation and Theoretical Physics
This paper is a survey dedicated to the analogy between the notions of {\it
complexity} in theoretical computer science and {\it energy} in physics. This
analogy is not metaphorical: I describe three precise mathematical contexts,
suggested recently, in which mathematics related to (un)computability is
inspired by and to a degree reproduces formalisms of statistical physics and
quantum field theory.Comment: 23 pages. Talk at the satellite conference to ECM 2012, "QQQ Algebra,
Geometry, Information", Tallinn, July 9-12, 201
Generic algorithms for halting problem and optimal machines revisited
The halting problem is undecidable --- but can it be solved for "most"
inputs? This natural question was considered in a number of papers, in
different settings. We revisit their results and show that most of them can be
easily proven in a natural framework of optimal machines (considered in
algorithmic information theory) using the notion of Kolmogorov complexity. We
also consider some related questions about this framework and about asymptotic
properties of the halting problem. In particular, we show that the fraction of
terminating programs cannot have a limit, and all limit points are Martin-L\"of
random reals. We then consider mass problems of finding an approximate solution
of halting problem and probabilistic algorithms for them, proving both positive
and negative results. We consider the fraction of terminating programs that
require a long time for termination, and describe this fraction using the busy
beaver function. We also consider approximate versions of separation problems,
and revisit Schnorr's results about optimal numberings showing how they can be
generalized.Comment: a preliminary version was presented at the ICALP 2015 conferenc
A Computable Measure of Algorithmic Probability by Finite Approximations with an Application to Integer Sequences
Given the widespread use of lossless compression algorithms to approximate
algorithmic (Kolmogorov-Chaitin) complexity, and that lossless compression
algorithms fall short at characterizing patterns other than statistical ones
not different to entropy estimations, here we explore an alternative and
complementary approach. We study formal properties of a Levin-inspired measure
calculated from the output distribution of small Turing machines. We
introduce and justify finite approximations that have been used in some
applications as an alternative to lossless compression algorithms for
approximating algorithmic (Kolmogorov-Chaitin) complexity. We provide proofs of
the relevant properties of both and and compare them to Levin's
Universal Distribution. We provide error estimations of with respect to
. Finally, we present an application to integer sequences from the Online
Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences which suggests that our AP-based measures may
characterize non-statistical patterns, and we report interesting correlations
with textual, function and program description lengths of the said sequences.Comment: As accepted by the journal Complexity (Wiley/Hindawi
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