On formally undecidable propositions in nondeterministic languages
Kolář, Martin · arXiv (Cornell University) · 2021
Any class of languages $\mathbf{L}$ accepted in time $\mathbf{T}$ has a counterpart $\mathbf{NL}$ accepted in nondeterministic time $\mathbf{NT}$. It follows from the definition of nondeterministic languages that $\mathbf{L} \subseteq \mathbf{NL}$. This work shows that every sufficiently powerful language in $\mathbf{L}$ contains a string corresponding to Gödel's undecidable proposition, but this string is not contained in its nondeterministic counterpart. This inconsistency in the definition of nondeterministic languages shows that certain questions regarding nondeterministic time complexity equivalences are irrevocably ill-posed.