33,901 research outputs found
The Busy Beaver Competition: a historical survey
Tibor Rado defined the Busy Beaver Competition in 1962. He used Turing
machines to give explicit definitions for some functions that are not
computable and grow faster than any computable function. He put forward the
problem of computing the values of these functions on numbers 1, 2, 3, ... More
and more powerful computers have made possible the computation of lower bounds
for these values. In 1988, Brady extended the definitions to functions on two
variables. We give a historical survey of these works. The successive record
holders in the Busy Beaver Competition are displayed, with their discoverers,
the date they were found, and, for some of them, an analysis of their behavior.Comment: 70 page
The Busy Beaver Competition: a historical survey
70 pagesTibor Rado defined the Busy Beaver Competition in 1962. He used Turing machines to give explicit definitions for some functions that are not computable and grow faster than any computable function. He put forward the problem of computing the values of these functions on numbers 1, 2, 3, ... More and more powerful computers have made possible the computation of lower bounds for these values. In 1988, Brady extended the definitions to functions on two variables. We give a historical survey of these works. The successive record holders in the Busy Beaver Competition are displayed, with their discoverers, the date they were found, and, for some of them, an analysis of their behavior
Numerical Evaluation of Algorithmic Complexity for Short Strings: A Glance into the Innermost Structure of Randomness
We describe an alternative method (to compression) that combines several
theoretical and experimental results to numerically approximate the algorithmic
(Kolmogorov-Chaitin) complexity of all bit strings up to 8
bits long, and for some between 9 and 16 bits long. This is done by an
exhaustive execution of all deterministic 2-symbol Turing machines with up to 4
states for which the halting times are known thanks to the Busy Beaver problem,
that is 11019960576 machines. An output frequency distribution is then
computed, from which the algorithmic probability is calculated and the
algorithmic complexity evaluated by way of the (Levin-Zvonkin-Chaitin) coding
theorem.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures. Version as accepted by the journal Applied
Mathematics and Computatio
Problems in number theory from busy beaver competition
By introducing the busy beaver competition of Turing machines, in 1962, Rado
defined noncomputable functions on positive integers. The study of these
functions and variants leads to many mathematical challenges. This article
takes up the following one: How can a small Turing machine manage to produce
very big numbers? It provides the following answer: mostly by simulating
Collatz-like functions, that are generalizations of the famous 3x+1 function.
These functions, like the 3x+1 function, lead to new unsolved problems in
number theory.Comment: 35 page
The "paradox" of computability and a recursive relative version of the Busy Beaver function
In this article, we will show that uncomputability is a relative property not
only of oracle Turing machines, but also of subrecursive classes. We will
define the concept of a Turing submachine, and a recursive relative version for
the Busy Beaver function which we will call Busy Beaver Plus function.
Therefore, we will prove that the computable Busy Beaver Plus function defined
on any Turing submachine is not computable by any program running on this
submachine. We will thereby demonstrate the existence of a "paradox" of
computability a la Skolem: a function is computable when "seen from the
outside" the subsystem, but uncomputable when "seen from within" the same
subsystem. Finally, we will raise the possibility of defining universal
submachines, and a hierarchy of negative Turing degrees.Comment: 10 pages. 0 figures. Supported by the National Council for Scientific
and Technological Development (CNPq), Brazil. Book chapter published in
Information and Complexity, Mark Burgin and Cristian S. Calude (Editors),
World Scientific Publishing, 2016, ISBN 978-981-3109-02-5, available at
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10017. arXiv admin note:
substantial text overlap with arXiv:1612.0522
- …