Bouziane’s transformation of the Petri net reachability problem and incorrectness of the related algorithm

Abstract

The proceedings of FOCS’98 contain a paper by Zakariae Bouziane, who sketches a new representation of the Petri net reachability problem and claims to provide a new algorithm solving the problem. In this note, the essence of Bouziane’s approach is explained, and a serious flaw of the algorithm is exposed.