Carl Adam Petri (1926–2010) Mathematician, computer scientist, inventor of Petri nets.
Photo: Michael Krapp, derivative work: AwOc, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Back in '39, a young genius did find, A way to chart processes, leaving none behind. Carl Petri, just thirteen, with a vision so keen, Mapped out the flow of systems, a mathematical dream.
Chorus:
Dancing through the nets, where tokens freely roam, In places and transitions, they find their way home. A bipartite graph, so elegantly composed, Petri nets, where complexity is neatly enclosed.
From chemistry to computing, his idea took flight, A universal language, turning complexity to light. Arcs and places, transitions in between, A ballet of tokens, in a machine's serene dream.
○────►[t1]────►○────►[t2]────►○
place place place
(tokens) (transition) (tokens)
Non-deterministic, yet so precise, Modeling concurrency, cutting through like a knife. Enabled transitions, a firing sequence so bright, Petri nets illuminate, the theoretical night.
With every token's journey, a story unfolds, A dance of possibilities, as the future holds. From discrete events to continuous flow, Petri nets capture dynamics, as they go.
Chorus:
Dancing through the nets, where tokens freely roam, In places and transitions, they find their way home. A graphical notation, for processes so wide, Petri nets, our faithful guide, with Carl by our side.
So here's to Carl Petri, and his brilliant insight, A mathematical model, to bring complexity to light. Through places and transitions, our systems we compose, With Petri nets, the path of clarity brightly glows.
Your nets still run—in silicon, in theory, in our minds.
Tokens flow on at pflow.xyz