Ackermann function
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Encyclopedic overview
In computability theory, the Ackermann function, named after Wilhelm Ackermann, is one of the simplest and earliest-discovered examples of a total computable function that is not primitive recursive. All primitive recursive functions are total and computable, but the Ackermann function illustrates that not all total computable functions are primitive recursive. It is essentially constructed by diagonalizing a sequence of primitive recursive functions
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Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Ackermann function” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.