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A Question relating to a Turing Machine with a useless state

Submitted by: @import:stackexchange-cs··
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relatingwithuselessstatemachineturingquestion

Problem

OK, so here is a question from a past test in my Theory of Computation class:


A useless state in a TM is one that is never entered on any input string. Let $$\mathrm{USELESS}_{\mathrm{TM}} = \{\langle M, q \rangle \mid q \text{ is a useless state in }M\}.$$
Prove that $\mathrm{USELESS}_{\mathrm{TM}}$ is undecidable.

I think I have an answer, but I'm not sure if it is correct. Will include it in the answer section.

Solution

This is clearly reducible from the Halting Problem. If a machine $M$ does not stop on input $x$ then any final state is "useless". Given an input $M,x$ for the Halting problem, it is easy to construct $M_x$ that halts on every input (thus its final state is not useless) if and only if $M$ halts on $x$. That way you can decide Halting Problem if you can decide $\mathrm{USELESS}_{\mathrm{TM}}$, which yields a contradiction.

Context

StackExchange Computer Science Q#636, answer score: 13

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