Certification Problem

Input (COPS 669)

We consider the TRS containing the following rules:

a → c (1)
f(a) → b (2)
b → b (3)
b → h(b,h(c,a)) (4)

The underlying signature is as follows:

{a/0, c/0, f/1, b/0, h/2}

Property / Task

Prove or disprove confluence.

Answer / Result

No.

Proof (by csi @ CoCo 2020)

1 Non-Joinable Fork

The system is not confluent due to the following forking derivations.

t0 = f(a)
→ f(c)
= t1

t0 = f(a)
→ b
→ h(b,h(c,a))
→ h(h(b,h(c,a)),h(c,a))
= t3

The two resulting terms cannot be joined for the following reason: