Physical constraints on hypercomputation

Abstract

Many attempts to transcend the fundamental limitations to computability implied by the Halting Problem for Turing Machines depend on the use of forms of hypercomputation that draw on notions of infinite or continuous, as opposed to bounded or discrete, computation. Thus, such schemes may include the deployment of actualised rather than potential infinities of physical resources, or of physical representations of real numbers to arbitrary precision. Here, we argue that such bases for hypercomputation are not materially realisable and so cannot constitute new forms of effective calculability.