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THE UNDECIDABILITY OF THE DEFINABILITY OF PRINCIPAL SUBCONGRUENCES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2015

MATTHEW MOORE*
Affiliation:
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY NASHVILLE, TN 37240, USAE-mail:matthew.moore@vanderbilt.edu

Abstract

For each Turing machine ${\cal T}$, we construct an algebra $\mathbb{A}$$\left( {\cal T} \right)$ such that the variety generated by $\mathbb{A}$$\left( {\cal T} \right)$ has definable principal subcongruences if and only if ${\cal T}$ halts, thus proving that the property of having definable principal subcongruences is undecidable for a finite algebra. A consequence of this is that there is no algorithm that takes as input a finite algebra and decides whether that algebra is finitely based.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Symbolic Logic 2015 

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References

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