Recent work by C.A.R. Hoare and J. He has confirmed a widely
held conjecture that all paradigms can be embedded in the single
mathematical theory of relations. A general "unifying theory" has been
found which projects into more particular instances corresponding a
wide variety of computational paradigms. The key goal of this work has
been to provide a framework to integrate the diverse formalisms and
tools needed to extend formal methods to economically significant
fractions of the design trajectory of critical systems.
In this talk I will present an introduction to the unifying theory and
some of its projections and outline proposals for its realisation
within conventional theorem provers based on higher-order logic.
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