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What You Always Wanted to Know about Rigid E-Unification

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Abstract

This paper solves an open problem posed by a number of researchers: the construction of a complete calculus for matrix-based methods with rigid E-unification. The use of rigid E-unification and simultaneous rigid E-unification for such methods was proposed by Gallier et al., in 1987. After our proof of the undecidability of simultaneous rigid E-unification in 1995. (Degtyarev and Voronkov, 1996d), it became clear that one should look for more refined techniques to deal with equality in matrix-based methods. In this article, we define a complete proof procedure for first-order logic with equality based on an incomplete but terminating procedure for rigid E-unification. Our approach is applicable to the connection method and the tableau method and is illustrated on the tableau method.

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  1. Computing Science Department, Uppsala University, Sweden

    Anatoli Degtyarev & Andrei Voronkov

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  1. Anatoli Degtyarev
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  2. Andrei Voronkov
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Degtyarev, A., Voronkov, A. What You Always Wanted to Know about Rigid E-Unification. Journal of Automated Reasoning 20, 47–80 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005996623714

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