Reductions of Hilbert's tenth problem

Abstract

Hilbert's tenth problem is to find an algorithm for determining whether or not a diophantine equation possesses solutions. A diophantine predicate (of positive integers) is defined to be one of the formwhere P is a polynomial with integral coefficients (positive, negative, or zero). Previous work has considered the variables as ranging over nonnegative integers; but we shall find it more useful here to restrict the range to positive integers, no essential change being thereby introduced. It is clear that the recursive unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth problem would follow if one could show that some non-recursive predicate were diophantine. In particular, it would suffice to show that every recursively enumerable predicate is diophantine. Actually, it would suffice to prove far less.