Noncomplex sequences: characterizations and examples

Abstract

We are concerned in this paper with infinite binary sequences which are noncomplex in the sense that their minimal-program complexity (i.e., the lengths of shortest programs for computing their finite initial segments), as a function of the lengths of their initial segments, grows arbitrarily (in an effective sense) slowly. Indeed, the existence of such sequences which are also nonrecursive raises some interesting questions concerning the notion of computability itself. Our first task is to give a characterization of these sequences which does not directly involve the notions of complexity theory. Although these characterizations do involve the primitives of recursive function theory, they do not involve the types of properties which one usually encounters there. While a closer connection is still hoped for, the lack of one is not entirely unexpected. For example, except for the trivial case of degree 0, there is no general correlation between program complexity and degrees of unsolvability. The reason, roughly, is this: even though the inequality deg (f) ≤ deg (g) expresses the relative information between f and g (in the sense that if one knows g then one can compute f), it is a qualitative sort of information. The minimal-program complexity is used as a measure of algorithmic information content and as such is quantitative.The second task of this paper is to present an example of one of these sequences which to its credit possesses a fairly long list of interesting properties, not the least attractive of which is that, though nonrecursive, it is very simple to describe. In fact this sequence has occurred previously in the literature. It is the characteristic sequence of the set of busy beaver numbers first studied by T. Rado [13]. Of particular interest to the discussion in the last section of this paper concerning the notion of computability is the fact that all the initial segments of this sequence are computable by arbitrarily short programs each of which is defined on all inputs and runs very quickly.