This is no coincidence: it can be proved that a linearizable compare-and-set (or increment-and-get) register and total order broadcast are both equivalent to consensus [28, 67]. That is, if you can solve one of these problems, you can transform it into a solution for the others. This is quite a profound and surprising insight! It is time to finally tackle the consensus problem head-on, which we will do in the rest of this chapter.
