Automated Reasoning Essays in Honor of Woody Bledsoe

These essays have been written to honor W. W. Bledsoe, a scientist who has contributed to such diverse fields as mathematics, systems analysis, pattern recognition, biology, artificial intelligence, and automated reasoning. The first essay provides a sketch of his life, emphasizing his scientific contributions. The diversity of the fields to which Bledsoe has contributed is reflected in the range of the other essays, which are original scientific contributions by some of his many friends and colleagues. Bledsoe is a founding father of the field of automated reasoning, and a majority of the essays are on that topic. These essays are collected together here not only to acknowledge Bledsoe's manifold and substantial scientific contributions but also to express our appreciation for the great care and energy that he has devoted to nurturing many of the scientists working in those scientific fields he has helped found. Robert S. Boyer Austin February, 1991 ix Acknow ledgements Thanks to Larry Wos, editor of the Journal of Automated Reasoning, and Derek Middleton and Martin Scrivener, Kluwer Academic editors, for sup­ porting the idea of initiating this collection of essays. Thanks to A. Michael Ballantyne and Michael Spivak, for help with lffi.TWC, especially in identifying many formatting problems and providing fixes.

1 A Biographical Sketch of W. W. Bledsoe.- 2 METEORs: High Performance Theorem Provers using Model Elimination.- 3 The Metatheorist: Automatic Proofs of Theorems in Analysis Using Non-Standard Techniques, Part II.- 4 Perspectives on Automated Deduction.- 5 MJRTY—A Fast Majority Vote Algorithm.- 6 How the Brain Adjusts Synapses—Maybe.- 7 The Use of Proof Plans for Normalization.- 8 What Are the Limitations of the Situation Calculus?.- 9 Reasoning In Paraconsistent Logics.- 10 Compiling Recursive Functional Prolog Programs with List Structure into Procedural Languages.- 11 Aligning Multiple RNA Sequences.- 12 Similarity, Uncertainty and Case-Based Reasoning in Patdex.- 13 Formal and Informal Proofs.- 14 PTTP and Linked Inference.- 15 Automated Reasoning and Bledsoe’s Dream for the Field.- Contributors.