Abstract
It is shown that distributed systems of probabilistic processors are essentially more powerful than distributed systems of deterministic processors, i.e., there are certain useful behaviors that can be realized only by the former. This is demonstrated on the dining philosophers problem. It is shown that, under certain natural hypotheses, there is no way the philosophers can be programmed (in a deterministic fashion) so as to guarantee the absence of deadlock (general starvation). On the other hand, if the philosophers are given some freedom of choice one may program them to guarantee that every hungry philosopher will eat (with probability one) under any circumstances (even an adversary scheduling). The solution proposed here is fully distributed and does not involve any central memory or any process with which every philosopher can communicate.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, POPL 1981 |
| Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
| Pages | 133-138 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| ISBN (Print) | 089791029X |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 26 Jan 1981 |
| Event | 8th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, POPL 1981 - Williamsburg, United States Duration: 26 Jan 1981 → 28 Jan 1981 |
Publication series
| Name | Conference Record of the Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages |
|---|---|
| ISSN (Print) | 0730-8566 |
Conference
| Conference | 8th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, POPL 1981 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Williamsburg |
| Period | 26/01/81 → 28/01/81 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 1981 ACM.