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Approximate decidability in euclidean spaces
Author(s) -
Hemmerling Armin
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
mathematical logic quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.473
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1521-3870
pISSN - 0942-5616
DOI - 10.1002/malq.200310003
Subject(s) - decidability , mathematics , computability , euclidean geometry , discrete mathematics , intersection (aeronautics) , computability theory , closed set , combinatorics , geometry , engineering , aerospace engineering
We study concepts of decidability (recursivity) for subsets of Euclidean spaces ℝ k within the framework of approximate computability (type two theory of effectivity). A new notion of approximate decidability is proposed and discussed in some detail. It is an effective variant of F. Hausdorff's concept of resolvable sets, and it modifies and generalizes notions of recursivity known from computable analysis, formerly used for open or closed sets only, to more general types of sets. Approximate decidability of sets can equivalently be expressed by computability of the characteristic functions by means of appropriately working oracle Turing machines. The notion fulfills some natural requirements and is hereditary under canonical embeddings of sets into spaces of higher dimensions. However, it is not closed under binary union or intersection of sets. We also show how the framework of resolvability and approximate decidability can be applied to investigate concepts of reducibility for subsets of Euclidean spaces.