[TYPES/announce] paper: history of bisimulation, coinduction

[Davide Sangiorgi]

Dear all,
I'd like to announce the availability of the paper below. 
As usual,comments are welcome.
Best regards,
Davide Sangiorgi

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Title: 
  On the origins of Bisimulation, Coinduction, 
  and  Fixed Points 
Url: 
   http://www.cs.unibo.it/~sangio/DOC_public/history_bis_coind.pdf
Author: 
  Davide Sangiorgi
Note: 
  Technical Report 2007-24, Department of 
  Computer Science, University of Bologna

Abstract:
  The origins of bisimulation and bisimilarity are examined, in the
  three fields where they have been independently discovered: Computer
  Science, Philosophical Logic (precisely, Modal Logic), Set Theory.
 
  Bisimulation and bisimilarity are coinductive notions, and as such
  are intimately related to fixed points, in particular greatest fixed
  points.  Therefore also the appearance of coinduction and fixed
  points are discussed, though in this case only within Computer
  Science. The paper ends with some historical remarks on the main
  fixed-point theorems (such as Knaster-Tarski) that underpin the
  fixed-point theory presented.