this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
1 points (100.0% liked)

math

777 readers
1 users here now

General community for all things mathematics on @lemmy.world

Submit link and text posts about anything at all related to mathematics.

Questions about mathematical topics are allowed, but NO HOMEWORK HELP. Communities for general math and homework help should be firmly delineated just as they were on reddit.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi there - large numbers are fun and I was learning about the Busy Beaver function which (theoretically) produces unfathomably large numbers by finding the maximum number of 1s written on a blank Turing machine tape out of the set of all n-state Turing machines that halt.

I was wondering if a conceptually more obvious, but larger variation could count the maximum number of steps taken before halting out of all n-state Turing machines that halt?

Would these numbesr not grow faster than the traditional Busy Beaver, since the number of steps will always be greater (or equal?) to the number of 1s written?

Obviously, the halting problem shows that we can't know beforehand if the machines will actually halt, but that issue is common to both versions.

Just curious if there is a reason the problem is not considered this way?

Any googologists out there with insights?

no comments (yet)
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
there doesn't seem to be anything here