Richard Fateman  wrote:   
   > Regarding Waldek's note -- about the undecidability of central problems in   
   mathematics that require determining whether an expression is zero or not...   
   (Results due to Daniel Richardson, 1968 or so).   
   > I don't consider this a design flaw in the systems that people build.  It is   
   a fundamental limitation in the mechanization of mathematics. One that cannot   
   be remedied by a better design.  Unless you design a system that is so   
   constrained (say, to    
   integer arithmetic) that Richardson's results don't hold.   
      
   I do not say that undecidability is a design flaw.  Undecidability is   
   a fact that we need to accept.  OTOH design of a system should   
   accomodate undecidability.  And related to undecidability is   
   complexity.  IMO impotant part of quality of design is how it   
   manages complexity needed to get correct and useful results   
   in undecidable domains.   
      
   --   
                                 Waldek Hebisch   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)