Open Petri Nets (Part 1)

Jade Master and I have just finished a paper on open Petri nets:

• John Baez and Jade Master, Open Petri nets.

Abstract. The reachability semantics for Petri nets can be studied using open Petri nets. For us an ‘open’ Petri net is one with certain places designated as inputs and outputs via a cospan of sets. We can compose open Petri nets by gluing the outputs of one to the inputs of another. Open Petri nets can be treated as morphisms of a category, which becomes symmetric monoidal under di...