Ribbon Tensorial Logic

Paul-André Melliès
2018 Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science - LICS '18  
We introduce a topologically-aware version of tensorial logic, called ribbon tensorial logic. To every proof of the logic, we associate a ribbon tangle which tracks the flow of tensorial negations inside the proof. The translation is functorial: it is performed by exhibiting a correspondence between the notion of dialogue category in proof theory and the notion of ribbon category in knot theory. Our main result is that the translation is also faithful: two proofs are equal modulo the equational
more » ... theory of ribbon tensorial logic if and only if the associated ribbon tangles are equal up to topological deformation. This "proof-as-tangle" theorem may be understood as a coherence theorem for balanced dialogue categories, and as a mathematical foundation for topological game semantics.
doi:10.1145/3209108.3209129 dblp:conf/lics/Mellies18 fatcat:j6idr7fbgnb6xber5xxzfrn7wi