Lambda the Ultimate

Unless I flubbed the search (entirely possible), this LtU relevant classic has not been registered properly here (and I think ought to be). From 1986 and the pen of Leslie Lamport:

The Mutual Exclusion Problem: Part I -- A Theory of Interprocess Communication

The Mutual Exclusion Problem: Part II -- Statement and Solutions [same link]

A taste:

2.1 Physical Considerations. For our results to be meaningful, our formalism must accurately reflect the physical reality of concurrent processes. We therefore feel that it is important to justify the formalism on physical grounds. We do this in terms of the geometry of space-time, which lies at the foundation of all modern physics. [....]

The reader may find the introduction of special relativity a bit farfetched, since one is rarely, if ever, concerned with systems of processes moving at relativistic velocities relative to one another. However, the relativistic view of time is relevant whenever signal propagation time is not neglibibly small compared with the execution time of individual operations, and this is certainly the case in in most multiprocess systems.

Love 'em or hate 'em the papers are real art and, in my opinion, illustrate by example a good way of thinking about computing. A way of thinking not as much practiced as it ought to be.