[Math] Can the Riemann hypothesis be undecidable

lo.logicnt.number-theory

The question is contained in the title; I mean the standard axioms ZFC. The wiki link: Riemann hypothesis. There are finite algorithms allowing one to decide if there are non-trivial zeroes of the $\zeta$-function in the domains whose union exhausts the whole strip $0<\Re z<1$, but this does not seem to be the obstacle for undecidability. Are there other arguments?

Best Answer

I do not know anything about zero-finding algorithms for $\zeta$, so I will make only one small remark which doesn't require such knowledge: If the Riemann Hypothesis is false, then it is provably false (in ZFC, or any similar system).

This is because Robin's theorem tells us that the Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to the assertion that, for every natural $n \geq 5041$, the sum of the divisors of $n$ is less than $e^{\gamma} n \log{\log{n}}$; since there are programs which calculate this latter quantity to arbitrary precision, and thus can verify whether this inequality holds for any given $n$, we find that the Riemann hypothesis is a $\Pi_1$ statement: it is equivalent to the assertion that some computer program never outputs "NO" on any input. (Although not familiar with the proofs of Robin's theorem, etc., I assume they can be carried out in ZFC, and thus establish the relevant equivalence within ZFC.). There may be more direct ways to establish that the Riemann hypothesis is a $\Pi_1$ statement, such as by knowledge of algorithms which enumerate to arbitrary precision the zeros of $\zeta$, but at any rate, there is this one.

Accordingly, if the Riemann hypothesis is false, then the relevant computer program does output "NO" on some input, from which it would follow that ZFC proves that that computer program outputs "NO" on that input, and thus ZFC would prove the Riemann hypothesis to be false.

The possibility still remains, however, as far as I know, that the Riemann hypothesis may be true but unprovable in ZFC.