Reactive Systems: Modelling, Specification and Verification - Cs.ioc.ee
Reactive Systems: Modelling, Specification and Verification - Cs.ioc.ee
Reactive Systems: Modelling, Specification and Verification - Cs.ioc.ee
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118 CHAPTER 6. HML WITH RECURSION<br />
implicitly defining the set of their solutions, <strong>and</strong> we are all familiar with equations<br />
that have no solutions at all. For instance, the equation<br />
x = x + 1 (6.2)<br />
has no solution over the set of natural numbers, <strong>and</strong> there is no X ⊆ N such that<br />
X = N \ X . (6.3)<br />
On the other h<strong>and</strong>, there are uncountably many X ⊆ N such that<br />
X = {2} ∪ X , (6.4)<br />
namely all of the sets of natural numbers that contain the number 2. There are<br />
also equations that have a finite number of solutions, but not a unique one. As an<br />
example, consider the equation<br />
X = {10} ∪ {n − 1 | n ∈ X, n = 0} . (6.5)<br />
The only finite set that is the solution for this equation is the set {0, 1, . . . , 10}, <strong>and</strong><br />
the only infinite solution is N itself.<br />
Exercise 6.1 Check the claims that we have just made. <br />
Exercise 6.2 Reconsider equations (6.2)–(6.5).<br />
1. Why doesn’t Tarski’s fixed point theorem apply to yield a solution to the first<br />
two of these equations?<br />
2. Consider the structure introduced in the second bullet of Example 4.2 on<br />
page 88. For each d ∈ N ∪ {∞}, define<br />
∞ + d = d + ∞ = ∞ .<br />
Does equation (6.2) have a solution in the resulting structure? How many<br />
solutions does that equation have?<br />
3. Use Tarski’s fixed point theorem to find the largest <strong>and</strong> least solutions of<br />
(6.5).<br />
Since an equation like (6.1) is meant to describe a formula, it is therefore natural<br />
to ask ourselves the following questions.