satisfiability problem
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In
mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...
, a formula is ''satisfiable'' if it is true under some assignment of values to its variables. For example, the formula x+3=y is satisfiable because it is true when x=3 and y=6, while the formula x+1=x is not satisfiable over the integers. The dual concept to satisfiability is validity; a formula is ''valid'' if every assignment of values to its variables makes the formula true. For example, x+3=3+x is valid over the integers, but x+3=y is not. Formally, satisfiability is studied with respect to a fixed logic defining the syntax of allowed symbols, such as
first-order logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
,
second-order logic In logic and mathematics, second-order logic is an extension of first-order logic, which itself is an extension of propositional logic. Second-order logic is in turn extended by higher-order logic and type theory. First-order logic quantifies on ...
or
propositional logic Propositional calculus is a branch of logic. It is also called propositional logic, statement logic, sentential calculus, sentential logic, or sometimes zeroth-order logic. It deals with propositions (which can be true or false) and relations b ...
. Rather than being syntactic, however, satisfiability is a semantic property because it relates to the ''meaning'' of the symbols, for example, the meaning of + in a formula such as x+1=x. Formally, we define an interpretation (or
model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...
) to be an assignment of values to the variables and an assignment of meaning to all other non-logical symbols, and a formula is said to be satisfiable if there is some interpretation which makes it true. While this allows non-standard interpretations of symbols such as +, one can restrict their meaning by providing additional axioms. The
satisfiability modulo theories In computer science and mathematical logic, satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) is the problem of determining whether a mathematical formula is satisfiable. It generalizes the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT) to more complex formulas involvi ...
problem considers satisfiability of a formula with respect to a formal theory, which is a (finite or infinite) set of axioms. Satisfiability and validity are defined for a single formula, but can be generalized to an arbitrary theory or set of formulas: a theory is satisfiable if at least one interpretation makes every formula in the theory true, and valid if every formula is true in every interpretation. For example, theories of arithmetic such as Peano arithmetic are satisfiable because they are true in the natural numbers. This concept is closely related to the
consistency In classical deductive logic, a consistent theory is one that does not lead to a logical contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent ...
of a theory, and in fact is equivalent to consistency for first-order logic, a result known as
Gödel's completeness theorem Gödel's completeness theorem is a fundamental theorem in mathematical logic that establishes a correspondence between semantic truth and syntactic provability in first-order logic. The completeness theorem applies to any first-order theory: ...
. The negation of satisfiability is unsatisfiability, and the negation of validity is invalidity. These four concepts are related to each other in a manner exactly analogous to
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
's square of opposition. The problem of determining whether a formula in
propositional logic Propositional calculus is a branch of logic. It is also called propositional logic, statement logic, sentential calculus, sentential logic, or sometimes zeroth-order logic. It deals with propositions (which can be true or false) and relations b ...
is satisfiable is decidable, and is known as the Boolean satisfiability problem, or SAT. In general, the problem of determining whether a sentence of
first-order logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
is satisfiable is not decidable. In universal algebra, equational theory, and
automated theorem proving Automated theorem proving (also known as ATP or automated deduction) is a subfield of automated reasoning and mathematical logic dealing with proving mathematical theorems by computer programs. Automated reasoning over mathematical proof was a ma ...
, the methods of term rewriting, congruence closure and unification are used to attempt to decide satisfiability. Whether a particular
theory A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...
is decidable or not depends whether the theory is variable-free and on other conditions.


Reduction of validity to satisfiability

For classical logics with negation, it is generally possible to re-express the question of the validity of a formula to one involving satisfiability, because of the relationships between the concepts expressed in the above square of opposition. In particular φ is valid if and only if ¬φ is unsatisfiable, which is to say it is false that ¬φ is satisfiable. Put another way, φ is satisfiable if and only if ¬φ is invalid. For logics without negation, such as the positive propositional calculus, the questions of validity and satisfiability may be unrelated. In the case of the positive propositional calculus, the satisfiability problem is trivial, as every formula is satisfiable, while the validity problem is co-NP complete.


Propositional satisfiability for classical logic

In the case of classical propositional logic, satisfiability is decidable for propositional formulae. In particular, satisfiability is an
NP-complete In computational complexity theory, a problem is NP-complete when: # it is a problem for which the correctness of each solution can be verified quickly (namely, in polynomial time) and a brute-force search algorithm can find a solution by trying ...
problem, and is one of the most intensively studied problems in
computational complexity theory In theoretical computer science and mathematics, computational complexity theory focuses on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and relating these classes to each other. A computational problem is a task solved ...
.


Satisfiability in first-order logic

For
first-order logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
(FOL), satisfiability is undecidable. More specifically, it is a co-RE-complete problem and therefore not
semidecidable In logic, a true/false decision problem is decidable if there exists an effective method for deriving the correct answer. Zeroth-order logic (propositional logic) is decidable, whereas first-order and higher-order logic are not. Logical systems a ...
. This fact has to do with the undecidability of the validity problem for FOL. The question of the status of the validity problem was posed firstly by David Hilbert, as the so-called
Entscheidungsproblem In mathematics and computer science, the ' (, ) is a challenge posed by David Hilbert and Wilhelm Ackermann in 1928. The problem asks for an algorithm that considers, as input, a statement and answers "Yes" or "No" according to whether the state ...
. The universal validity of a formula is a semi-decidable problem by
Gödel's completeness theorem Gödel's completeness theorem is a fundamental theorem in mathematical logic that establishes a correspondence between semantic truth and syntactic provability in first-order logic. The completeness theorem applies to any first-order theory: ...
. If satisfiability were also a semi-decidable problem, then the problem of the existence of counter-models would be too (a formula has counter-models iff its negation is satisfiable). So the problem of logical validity would be decidable, which contradicts the Church–Turing theorem, a result stating the negative answer for the Entscheidungsproblem.


Satisfiability in model theory

In model theory, an
atomic formula In mathematical logic, an atomic formula (also known as an atom or a prime formula) is a formula with no deeper propositional structure, that is, a formula that contains no logical connectives or equivalently a formula that has no strict subformu ...
is satisfiable if there is a collection of elements of a structure that render the formula true. If ''A'' is a structure, φ is a formula, and ''a'' is a collection of elements, taken from the structure, that satisfy φ, then it is commonly written that :''A'' ⊧ φ If φ has no free variables, that is, if φ is an atomic sentence, and it is satisfied by ''A'', then one writes :''A'' ⊧ φ In this case, one may also say that ''A'' is a model for φ, or that φ is ''true'' in ''A''. If ''T'' is a collection of atomic sentences (a theory) satisfied by ''A'', one writes :''A'' ⊧ ''T''


Finite satisfiability

A problem related to satisfiability is that of finite satisfiability, which is the question of determining whether a formula admits a ''finite'' model that makes it true. For a logic that has the finite model property, the problems of satisfiability and finite satisfiability coincide, as a formula of that logic has a model if and only if it has a finite model. This question is important in the mathematical field of finite model theory. Finite satisfiability and satisfiability need not coincide in general. For instance, consider the
first-order logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
formula obtained as the
conjunction Conjunction may refer to: * Conjunction (grammar), a part of speech * Logical conjunction, a mathematical operator ** Conjunction introduction, a rule of inference of propositional logic * Conjunction (astronomy), in which two astronomical bodies ...
of the following sentences, where a_0 and a_1 are constants: * R(a_0, a_1) * \forall x y (R(x, y) \rightarrow \exists z R(y, z)) * \forall x y z (R(y, x) \wedge R(z, x) \rightarrow y = z)) * \forall x \neg R(x, a_0) The resulting formula has the infinite model R(a_0, a_1), R(a_1, a_2), \ldots, but it can be shown that it has no finite model (starting at the fact R(a_0, a_1) and following the chain of R atoms that must exist by the second axiom, the finiteness of a model would require the existence of a loop, which would violate the third and fourth axioms, whether it loops back on a_0 or on a different element). The computational complexity of deciding satisfiability for an input formula in a given logic may differ from that of deciding finite satisfiability; in fact, for some logics, only one of them is decidable. For classical
first-order logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
, finite satisfiability is
recursively enumerable In computability theory, a set ''S'' of natural numbers is called computably enumerable (c.e.), recursively enumerable (r.e.), semidecidable, partially decidable, listable, provable or Turing-recognizable if: *There is an algorithm such that the ...
(in class RE) and undecidable by Trakhtenbrot's theorem applied to the negation of the formula.


Numerical constraints

often appear in the field of mathematical optimization, where one usually wants to maximize (or minimize) an objective function subject to some constraints. However, leaving aside the objective function, the basic issue of simply deciding whether the constraints are satisfiable can be challenging or undecidable in some settings. The following table summarizes the main cases. ''Table source: Bockmayr and Weispfenning''. For linear constraints, a fuller picture is provided by the following table. ''Table source: Bockmayr and Weispfenning''.


See also

*
2-satisfiability In computer science, 2-satisfiability, 2-SAT or just 2SAT is a computational problem of assigning values to variables, each of which has two possible values, in order to satisfy a system of constraints on pairs of variables. It is a special case ...
* Boolean satisfiability problem *
Circuit satisfiability In theoretical computer science, the circuit satisfiability problem (also known as CIRCUIT-SAT, CircuitSAT, CSAT, etc.) is the decision problem of determining whether a given Boolean circuit has an assignment of its inputs that makes the output tru ...
*
Karp's 21 NP-complete problems In computational complexity theory, Karp's 21 NP-complete problems are a set of computational problems which are NP-complete. In his 1972 paper, "Reducibility Among Combinatorial Problems", Richard Karp used Stephen Cook's 1971 theorem that the b ...
* Validity *
Constraint satisfaction In artificial intelligence and operations research, constraint satisfaction is the process of finding a solution through a set of constraints that impose conditions that the variables must satisfy. A solution is therefore a set of values for th ...


Notes


References

*


Further reading

* * {{Metalogic Concepts in logic Logical truth Model theory Philosophy of logic