Dice and Decideability

Dice and Decideability,
or Just a Minute at the Institute for Advanced Studies
with apologies to Jane Austin


"It is a fact universally computed that a single man in possession
of a small fortune wheel, might not actually be in search of a
wife".

ALbert looked at Mrs Einstein over the breakfast table in the warm
Prince Town sunlight of late august with admiration.

"You're talking about Alan again aren't you my dear?" he asked her.
Alan Mathison Turing was the talk of the town, since he arrived
with his small travelling show in tow. Everyone had become addicted
to the game, where you had to discuss one of the 23 famous Hilbert
Challenges for 1 minute, without any hesitation (the halting problem),
repetition (the loop), or dangling pointers (relevance).

The Elephant in the Room was the undeniable fact that Alan had
already solved one of them, but had not had space on the limited
stone tablet that was all Cambridge University could afford him, to
write down the proof.

Mrs Einstein was pleased that Johnny von Neumann had finally
settled down and was getting on with that huge birdsnest of glowing
tubes that looked like it was going to make a great Christmas
Lights, or maybe decorate the Founders Hall for the Alumni Ball -
what fun that was, with old students and colleagues dressed to the
nines (often wearing leopard skin pillbox hats and accompanying
tails in satin). Even Albert usually brushed his hair for the
occasion, although Alan would probably make himself scarce. A few
thousand people was a lot to cater for, when counting Austrain
Pastries, but was a vanishingly small number when it came to
counting the number of ways that their gene's could combine, or
indeed, just the time it would take to fly to the stats in the
relativistically challenged Wright Brothers' phantastic new
machine.

What fun. All the fun of the fair. And with Alan's new infinite
wheel of fortune (or non-deterministic mill, as he rather strangely
called it), even if God didn't, Albert would be playing Dice once
more.

of course, all the best stories end after happily, ever tale recursive