A Note on a Unifying Proof of the Undecidability of Several Diagrammatic Properties of Term Rewriting Systems

Abstract

In this note we give a simple unifying proof of the undecidability of several diagrammatic properties of term rewriting systems that include: local confluence, strong confluence, diamond property, subcommutative property, and the existence of successor. The idea is to code configurations of Turing Machines into terms, and then define a suitable relation on those terms such that the termination of the Turing Machine becomes equivalent to the satisfiability of the diagrammatic property.