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Turing Machines and Undecidability

GATE CSE 2015 Set 2 · Q21

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Consider the following statements. I. The complement of every Turing decidable language is Turing decidable II. There exists some language which is in NP but is not Turing decidable III. If LL is a language in NP, LL is Turing decidable Which of the above statements is/are true?

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Solution

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Official answer: D) Only I and III

Turing Machines and Undecidability

Let us evaluate each statement:

  • Statement I: *The complement of every Turing decidable language is Turing decidable.* Turing decidable (recursive) languages are closed under complementation. If a Turing machine MM decides LL, a machine M′M^{\prime} that swaps accept and reject states decides the complement L‾\overline{L}. Thus, Statement I is TRUE.

  • Statement II: *There exists some language which is in NP but is not Turing decidable.* By definition, the complexity class NP\text{NP} is the class of languages decidable by a non-deterministic Turing machine in polynomial time (O(nk)O(n^k)). Any language in NP\text{NP} can also be decided by a deterministic Turing machine in exponential time (O(2nk)O(2^{n^k})), meaning NP⊆EXPTIME⊂Decidable\text{NP} \subseteq \text{EXPTIME} \subset \text{Decidable}. Thus, all languages in NP\text{NP} are decidable. No undecidable language exists in NP\text{NP}. Thus, Statement II is FALSE.

  • Statement III: *If LL is a language in NP, LL is Turing decidable.* Since NP⊆EXPTIME⊂Decidable\text{NP} \subseteq \text{EXPTIME} \subset \text{Decidable}, every language in NP\text{NP} is indeed Turing decidable. Thus, Statement III is TRUE.

Hence, statements I and III are true, which corresponds to option (D).

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This Turing Machines and Undecidability previous year question is Q21 of the GATE CSE 2015 Set 2 paper. Find more GATE CSE PYQs on Turing Machines and Undecidability in Theory of Computation, or browse all GATE CSE PYQs.

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Turing Machines and Undecidability in GATE CSE

Turing Machines and Undecidability has 30 GATE CSE PYQs across 20 papers from 2012 to 2026. 13 of them are 1-mark MCQs like this one, and GATE CSE 2015 Set 2 has 2.

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GateAI solution cardGATE CSE 2015 Set 2 · Q21 · MCQ

Consider the following statements. I. The complement of every Turing decidable language is Turing decidable II. There exists some language which is in NP but is not Turing decidable III. If L is a language in NP, L is Turing decidable Which of the above statements is/are true?

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