Question

Consider the following statements:

I. The complement of every Turing decidable language is Turing decidable.
II. There exists some language which is in NP but is not Turing decidable.
III. If LL is a language in NP, LL is Turing decidable.

Which of the above statements is/are true?

Choose one option
Official answer and solution
Official answer
D
From
Official GATE 2015 answer key

Solution

Verify each statement using fundamental computability theory and complexity class inclusions.

Examine Statement I:
'The complement of every Turing decidable language is Turing decidable.'
If LL is decidable by a halting Turing Machine MM, a machine M′M' that flips the accept and reject halt states of MM decides L‾\overline{L}. Thus, the class of decidable (recursive) languages is closed under complementation. Statement I is true.

Examine Statement II:
'There exists some language which is in NP but is not Turing decidable.'
Every language in NP can be decided by a non-deterministic Turing machine in polynomial time O(nk)O(n^k). A deterministic Turing machine can simulate all branches in O(2nk)O(2^{n^k}) time, which halts on every input. Thus, NP⊆EXPTIME⊂Decidable\text{NP} \subseteq \text{EXPTIME} \subset \text{Decidable}. Every language in NP is decidable. Statement II is false.

Examine Statement III:
'If LL is a language in NP, LL is Turing decidable.'
Since NP⊆Decidable\text{NP} \subseteq \text{Decidable}, any language in NP is necessarily decidable. Statement III is true.

Statements I and III are true, corresponding to option D.

Final answer

D

Common trap

Confusing undecidability with NP-completeness or intractability.

The answer is the one in the official GATE answer key. The solution is this site's own explanation.

Source

Paper
GATE 2015 Computer Science and Information Technology (CS) Session 2
Question
31 of 65, printed as CS Q.21
Section
Computer Science and Information Technology

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