What German term describes the decision problem Turing proved unsolvable?

The German term for the decision problem Turing proved unsolvable is “Entscheidungsproblem.” The word literally means “decision problem” and refers to David Hilbert and Wilhelm Ackermann’s challenge: whether a general mechanical procedure could determine if any statement in formal logic is universally valid.

Turing addressed the problem in his 1936 paper “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” He showed that no general algorithm can decide every relevant logical question. His argument used the idea of a universal computing machine and connected the decision problem to the impossibility of solving certain questions about computation, including whether an arbitrary machine will eventually stop.

Alonzo Church reached an equivalent negative result independently using the lambda calculus. This is why the result is often described as both Church’s theorem and Turing’s proof. “Halteproblem,” or halting problem, is a related computational problem, not the German name of Hilbert’s original decision problem. “Berechenbarkeit” means computability, a broader field rather than this specific challenge.