Carl Adam Petri Life and Science
The book presents the life and works of one of Germany's most famous computer scientists, Carl Adam Petri. It is written in a vivid and entertaining manner, providing an in-depth discussion of the background behind Petri's best-known contribution to compu
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Carl Adam Petri Life and Science
Carl Adam Petri
Carl Adam Petri
Einar Smith
Carl Adam Petri Life and Science
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Einar Smith Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft SCAIInstitute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing Sankt Augustin, Germany Translated from the German by the author and Tim Denvir. Title of the orginal German Edition: Carl Adam Petri - Eine Biographie © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
ISBN 978-3-662-48092-2 DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-48093-9
ISBN 978-3-662-48093-9 (eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015953838 Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper Springer-Verlag GmbH (www.springer.com)
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Foreword
Whoever had the privilege of meeting Carl Adam Petri in private or public conversation remembers a very modest, humble person willing to patiently listen to his guest. When it came to his view, however, he was an adamant visionary who never allowed himself to sidetrack from his ultimate aim: to establish a comprehensive formal basis for informatics. In the cumbersome age of paper tape and punched cards, Petri rightly predicted a central usage of today’s computing devices in his PhD thesis, ‘Communication with Automata’. In times when only stand-alone, one-processor computers were available, Petri suggested concurrency as a fundamental phenomenon of discretely evolving systems. Carl Adam Petri is renowned for his invention of what is known as ‘Petri nets’ all over the world, with places to contain tokens that are moving along transitions. Petri himself considered this concept just a starting point for a far more comprehensive theory of informatics. During his professional life, Petri carefully observed the quickly evolving world of informatics, from its inception in the 1950s until the first decade of the new millennium. He early envisaged some of the later outcomes;
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