Ickedeterministisk

Ickedeterministisk, commonly translated as non-deterministic, is an adjective used to describe systems, processes, or models whose evolution is not uniquely determined by their initial state and inputs. In such cases there may be several possible outcomes from the same starting conditions. Non-determinism is an abstract concept used to reason about multiple potential trajectories rather than to predict a single result. It is distinct from randomness, though the two can be related in practice.

In computer science, nondeterminism appears in models such as nondeterministic finite automata (NFA) and nondeterministic Turing machines (NTM). From a given configuration, an NTM may have several possible next moves; an NFA may reach an accepting state if any computational path does. The concept is central to complexity theory: the class NP consists of problems solvable in polynomial time by a nondeterministic machine, while P concerns deterministic polynomial-time solutions. Importantly, nondeterminism is a modeling abstraction that does not imply physical randomness; it often represents the existence of multiple feasible computations or choices.

Beyond computation, nondeterminism is used in mathematics, logic, and philosophy to describe systems with uncertain evolution or incomplete information. In probability, random processes model actual randomness, but nondeterministic models may still describe the set of all possible outcomes under varying conditions or adversarial influences.

Overall, ickedeterministisk describes a fundamental mode of description in which a single initial state does not determine a unique future, allowing for multiple legitimate outcomes depending on the path taken.