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In computational mathematics, a word problem is the problem of deciding whether two given expressions are equivalent with respect to a set of rewriting identities. A prototypical example is the word problem for groups, but there are many other instances as well.
In Example 1 (above), if one does not comprehend the definition of the word "spent," they will misunderstand the entire purpose of the word problem. This alludes to how the cognitive skills lead to the development of the mathematical concepts. Some of the related mathematical skills necessary for solving word problems are mathematical ...
One stark difference is that Diophantine equations have an undecidable solubility problem, [2] whereas the analogous problem for word equations is decidable. [ 3 ] A classical example of a word equation is the commutation equation x w = ⋅ w x {\displaystyle xw{\overset {\cdot }{=}}wx} , in which x {\displaystyle x} is an unknown and w ...
The problem of planning air travel from one destination to another, when fares are taken into account. [15] In the ray tracing problem for a 3-dimensional system of reflective or refractive objects, determining if a ray beginning at a given position and direction eventually reaches a certain point. [16]
Many mathematical problems have been stated but not yet solved. These problems come from many areas of mathematics, such as theoretical physics, computer science, algebra, analysis, combinatorics, algebraic, differential, discrete and Euclidean geometries, graph theory, group theory, model theory, number theory, set theory, Ramsey theory, dynamical systems, and partial differential equations.
The word problem was one of the first examples of an unsolvable problem to be found not in mathematical logic or the theory of algorithms, but in one of the central branches of classical mathematics, algebra. As a result of its unsolvability, several other problems in combinatorial group theory have been shown to be unsolvable as well.
[2] [3] The word equation and its cognates in other languages may have subtly different meanings; for example, in French an équation is defined as containing one or more variables, while in English, any well-formed formula consisting of two expressions related with an equals sign is an equation. [4]
There are many known examples of undecidable problems from ordinary mathematics. The word problem for groups was proved algorithmically unsolvable by Pyotr Novikov in 1955 and independently by W. Boone in 1959. The busy beaver problem, developed by Tibor Radó in 1962, is another well-known example.