decision problem
noun Logic
The problem of finding a way to decide whether a formula or class of formulas is true or provable within a given system of axioms.He worked on mathematical logic solving certain cases of the decision problem for the first order predicate calculus, simplified results of Bernays, and worked on ideas of Post, Gödel and Church....
- In a lecture given at Harvard during 1939-40 Tarski said: -… the solution of the decision problem in its most general form is negative.… [Surely] many mathematicians experienced a profound feeling of relief when they heard of this result.
- This is a representation of ‘all logical and physical relations between variables representing the decision problem being examined.’
Origin
1930s: translation of German Entscheidungsproblem.