Distributed deduction by Clause-Diffusion: the aquarius prover

Abstract

Aquarius is a distributed theorem prover for first order logic with equality, developed for a network of workstations. Given in input a theorem proving problem and the number n of active nodes, Aquarius creates n deductive processes, one on each workstation, which work cooperatively toward the solution of the problem. Aquarius realizes a specific variant of a general methodology for distributed deduction, which we have called deduction by Clause-Diffusion and described in full in [6]. The subdivision of the work among the processes, their activities and their cooperation are defined by the Clause-Diffusion method. Aquarius incorporates the sequential theorem prover Otter, in such a way that Aquarius implements the parallelization, according to the Clause-Diffusion methodology, of all the strategies provided in Otter.