Some Varieties of Equational Logic

d Abstract) Gordon Plotkin1, LFCS, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, UK. The application of ideas from universal algebra to computer science has long been a major theme of Joseph Goguen's research, perhaps even the major theme. One strand of this work concerns algebraic datatypes. Recently there has been some interest in what one may call algebraic computation types. As we will show, these are also given by equational theories, if one only understands the notion of equational logic in somewhat broader senses than usual. One moral of our work is that, suitably considered, equational logic is not tied to the usual first-order syntax of terms and equations. Standard equational logic has proved a useful tool in several branches of computer science, see, for example, the RTA conference series [9] and textbooks, such as [1]. Perhaps the possibilities for richer varieties of equational logic discussed here will lead to further applications. We begin with an explanation of c...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: BIRTHDAY
• Authors: Gordon D. Plotkin
• Keywords: Applied Computing, BIRTHDAY 2006, Computation Types, Equational Logic, Equational Theories