<p>If you could ask one computational yes/no question, what would it be?</p>

<p>To be precise, you get to specify a Turing machine (in a convenient language) and an oracle will tell you whether or not it halts. You only get one query (let's say filesize &lt; 1TB); it's answered immediately; and you know for a fact that the answer you get is correct.</p>

<p>For example, you could ask "Does there exist a proof that $\mathsf{NP}\ne\mathsf{P}$?" by specifying a Turing machine that enumerates all proofs and halts when it finds such a proof. But is that the best question to ask?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-10T07:34:05.470Z
Most scientists will probably want to know about P and NP, but what is the motivation for your question? Is there a big philosophic golden nugget you want to lay on us? :-)
William Hird
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-10T14:55:13.477Z
Beside the "P vs NP" question (my first choice) I would be tempted to give the event a "zen-twist": generate a 1TB random TM and ask the oracle if it halts :-) :-) :-)
Marzio De Biasi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-13T17:51:02.000Z
Better zen twist: "what would this oracle answer if I asked it to tell me the opposite answer to the current question?"
cody
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-13T20:56:45.970Z
This is a bad fit for this site, but I think it would be a fun question for a blog post or [/r/compsci](http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/). In particular, I could think of several reasons why you would _not_ want to know the answer to P vs NP if you get only the answer and not an intelligible proof. For some nice reflections on this, I recommend: Rav, Y., (1999) Why do we prove theorems? _Philosophia Mathematica_, 7(3): pg. 5-42.
Artem Kaznatcheev
<soft-question>
What one bit of computable information would you most like to know?
tas
# What one bit of computable information would you most like to know?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-05-09)

If you could ask one computational yes/no question, what would it be?

To be precise, you get to specify a Turing machine (in a convenient language) and an oracle will tell you whether or not it halts. You only get one query (let's say filesize < 1TB); it's answered immediately; and you know for a fact that the answer you get is correct.

For example, you could ask "Does there exist a proof that $\mathsf{NP}\ne\mathsf{P}$?" by specifying a Turing machine that enumerates all proofs and halts when it finds such a proof. But is that the best question to ask?

**Tags:** soft-question

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Most scientists will probably want to know about P and NP, but what is the motivation for your question? Is there a big philosophic golden nugget you want to lay on us? :-)  
> **username_2**: Beside the "P vs NP" question (my first choice) I would be tempted to give the event a "zen-twist": generate a 1TB random TM and ask the oracle if it halts :-) :-) :-)  
> **username_3**: Better zen twist: "what would this oracle answer if I asked it to tell me the opposite answer to the current question?"  
> **username_4**: This is a bad fit for this site, but I think it would be a fun question for a blog post or [/r/compsci](http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/). In particular, I could think of several reasons why you would _not_ want to know the answer to P vs NP if you get only the answer and not an intelligible proof. For some nice reflections on this, I recommend: Rav, Y., (1999) Why do we prove theorems? _Philosophia Mathematica_, 7(3): pg. 5-42.  

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