---
title: "The Undecidable: Basic Papers on Undecidable Propositions, Unsolvable Problems and Computable Functions"
authors:
  - "Martin Davis (ed.)"
year: 1965
venue: "Raven Press; Dover reprint 2004"
arxiv: null
doi: null
source: "https://store.doverpublications.com/products/9780486432281"
topics:
  - undecidability
  - anthology
  - martin-davis
  - computability
seed_rank: 636
seed_batch: "foundations-greats-2026-08-13"
reviewed: "2026-08-13"
pool: "maths-foundations"
relevance_score: 8
lineage: foundations-of-computing
cites:
  - title: "Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I"
    url: "https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01700692"
    year: 1931
    arxiv: null
    doi: "10.1007/BF01700692"
  - title: "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem"
    url: "https://doi.org/10.1112/plms/s2-42.1.230"
    year: 1936
    arxiv: null
    doi: "10.1112/plms/s2-42.1.230"
  - title: "An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory"
    url: "https://doi.org/10.2307/2371045"
    year: 1936
    arxiv: null
    doi: "10.2307/2371045"
  - title: "Recursively enumerable sets of positive integers and their decision problems"
    url: "https://doi.org/10.1090/S0002-9904-1944-08111-1"
    year: 1944
    arxiv: null
    doi: "10.1090/S0002-9904-1944-08111-1"
  - title: "Computability and Unsolvability"
    url: "https://store.doverpublications.com/products/9780486614717"
    year: 1958
    arxiv: null
    doi: null
see:
  - "500-uber-formal-unentscheidbare-satze-der-principia-mathematica-"
  - "515-on-computable-numbers-with-an-application-to-the-entscheidun"
  - "507-an-unsolvable-problem-of-elementary-number-theory"
  - "534-recursively-enumerable-sets-of-positive-integers-and-their-d"
  - "635-computability-and-unsolvability"
---

# The Undecidable: Basic Papers on Undecidable Propositions, Unsolvable Problems and Computable Functions

## One-sentence takeaway

Davis’s anthology collects Gödel, Church, Turing, Rosser, Kleene, and Post — with editorial notes — as the portable English-language canon of undecidability.

## Why it matters here

Meta-card: the bound volume Broadside’s foundations spine lives inside. Cite the anthology for the *collection*; cite the primaries (500, 515, 507, 534) for the theorems.

## Key ideas

- Primary papers assembled in one English volume, several in first widely available translation.
- Davis’s notes connect the 1930s results to recursive-function / r.e.-set vocabulary.
- Standard historical sourcebook for incompleteness, unsolvability, and computable functions.
- Raven Press 1965; Dover 2004 reprint ISBN 978-0-486-43228-1.

## Caveats

## Links

- Dover edition: https://store.doverpublications.com/products/9780486432281