The Taub Faculty of Computer Science Events and Talks

The integer 1 is the unity of multiplication. The integer 12 represents the senior high-school year. They surely are different in many respects. But distributed computing does not multiply, neither it attends school, so why should it distinguish between the two integers? I refer to the nice generalization of consensus introduced by Chaudhuri called k-set consensus. While in consensus processors vote for a unique participating processor to be their representative, in set consensus their vote may diverge but at most to k will be voted for. Are there properties that hold for consensus but do not have a corresponding property for k-set consensus? This talk will survey a slew of interesting results arising from the conviction that for distributed computing 1 is not different than 12.

The talk will survey results with: Afek, Travers, Guerraoui, Kuznetsov, Raynal, and Rajsbaum.

Bio: Eli Gafni received his first degree form the Technion, second from UIUC, and third from MIT, all in E.E. He was involved with the Internet in the early days when it consisted of only few nodes. Unlike his contemporaries in MIT, of which quite a few went on to become few hundred times Internet Millionaires, he joined UCLA computer-science department and abstracted the Internet to the point that he became even too theoretical for that discipline. Nevertheless, with tenure, he is still a Professor at UCLA, holding forth that intellectual fun or the ability to roam perhaps aimlessly through intellectually challenging roads, is the reason to be in University rather than Industry. He does not envy the Millionaires, and he is only partially responsible for the sorry financial state of the UC system.