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 is a language in NP, is Turing decidable.
Which of the above statements is/are true?
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 is decidable by a halting Turing Machine , a machine that flips the accept and reject halt states of decides . 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 . A deterministic Turing machine can simulate all branches in time, which halts on every input. Thus, . Every language in NP is decidable. Statement II is false.
Examine Statement III:
'If is a language in NP, is Turing decidable.'
Since , any language in NP is necessarily decidable. Statement III is true.
Statements I and III are true, corresponding to option D.
D
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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