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satisfiability

logic
Also known as: satisfaction

Quick Summary

In logic, satisfiability refers to whether a statement or formula can be true. The predicate calculus, a branch of formal logic, deals with statements containing variables. A key concept is that if a statement is consistent (meaning its negation is not a theorem), then it is satisfiable, meaning it has a valid interpretation or model.1

The problem of determining satisfiability for all sentences in the predicate calculus is undecidable. This means there is no general algorithm or mechanical procedure that can determine for every sentence whether it is satisfiable or not. This undecidability is closely linked to other unsolvable problems, such as the halting problem for Turing machines.21

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