Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | chtl's commentslogin

There is of course not currently any upper bound on BB(6).

I find the question about a probvious upper bound more interesting - There is also not a probvious upper bound on BB(6), as this would require at least some understanding of the high-level behavior of all remaining holdout machines. However, there may soon be a 'probvious' upper bound on the value of BB(3,3) (BB for 3-state, 3-symbol machines). Up to equivalence, there are four remaining machines to decide to find the value of BB(3,3). One is a 'probviously halting' machine which will be the new champion if it halts, and for which probabilistic models of its behavior predict with high probability an exact halting time. One is a 'probviously nonhalting' machine. The two other machines are not well-understood enough to say whether they have any probvious long term behavior, but some suspect that they both 'probviously nonhalt'. If this is true it could be said that a 'probvious' upper bound exists for BB(3,3).


Very many - I think the number is several thousand. Several sporadic 6-state machines have been solved, though, and there are currently about 2400(?) unsolved machines. Among these are several Cryptids, machines whose halting problem is known to be mathematically hard


You guys need a blog to chase these down.

If nothing else, it’ll inspire the next generation of mathematicians.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: