# 12 Computability

However unapproachable these problems may seem to us and however helpless we stand before them, we have, nevertheless, the firm conviction that their solution must follow by a finite number of purely logical processes$\ldots$This conviction of the solvability of every mathematical problem is a powerful incentive to the worker. We hear within us the perpetual call: There is the problem. Seek its solution. You can find it by pure reason; for in mathematics there is no ignorabimus.
David~Hilbert, 1900

In this chapter we consider the question of what problems can and cannot be solved by mechanical computation. This is the question of computability: a problem is computable if it can be solved by some algorithm; a problem that is noncomputable cannot be solved by any algorithm.

Section 12.1 considers first the analogous question for declarative knowledge: are there true statements that cannot be proven by any proof? Section 12.2 introduces the Halting Problem, a problem that cannot be solved by any algorithm. Section 12.3 sketches Alan Turing's proof that the Halting Problem is noncomputable. Section 12.4 discusses how to show other problems are noncomputable.