On the validity of the global time assumption

Concurrency in distributed systems is usually modeled by a non-deterministic choice, i.e., a concurrent execution that is a partial order on events is equated with the set of total orders obtained from its interleavings. The validity of this interleaving (or global time) assumption is examined. A novel construction for atomic registers is presented; this construction is correct if the proof is based on partial orders, but is incorrect if all possible interleavings are confused with partial orders in the reasoning.<<ETX>>

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