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Turing-unrecognizable language - what TM does?

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

I have a problem giving "intuitive" explanation to turing-unrecognizable languages.

We can prove that, say, ${\overline{A_{TM}}}$ is not turing-recognizable, because that would make ${{A_{TM}}}$ decidable, but what would the $TM$ do if it doesn't accept, reject of loop?

Solution

You might be a little confused by a definition somewhere. A TM $M$ is a recognizer for a language $L$ if it

  • Accepts every string in $L$



  • Either rejects or loops on every string not in $L$



Now let's think about the language ${\overline{A_{TM}}}$. An input $\langle N,x\rangle$ is in ${\overline{A_{TM}}}$ if either:

  • $N$ rejects on $x$.



  • $N$ loops on $x$



So any recognizer will need to figure out (in finite time) that $N$ is going to loop on some input, which is just the halting problem.

Context

StackExchange Computer Science Q#24550, answer score: 6

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