Automated Theorem Proving - Decidability of The Problem

Decidability of The Problem

Depending on the underlying logic, the problem of deciding the validity of a formula varies from trivial to impossible. For the frequent case of propositional logic, the problem is decidable but Co-NP-complete, and hence only exponential-time algorithms are believed to exist for general proof tasks. For a first order predicate calculus, with no ("proper") axioms, Gödel's completeness theorem states that the theorems (provable statements) are exactly the logically valid well-formed formulas, so identifying valid formulas is recursively enumerable: given unbounded resources, any valid formula can eventually be proven.

However, invalid formulas (those that are not entailed by a given theory), cannot always be recognized. In addition, a consistent formal theory that contains the first-order theory of the natural numbers (thus having certain "proper axioms"), by Gödel's incompleteness theorem, contains true statements which cannot be proven. In these cases, an automated theorem prover may fail to terminate while searching for a proof. Despite these theoretical limits, in practice, theorem provers can solve many hard problems, even in these undecidable logics.