What Does Unification Mean?
In computer science and logic, unification is the algorithmic procedure used in solving equations involving symbolic expressions. In other words, by replacing certain sub-expression variables with other expressions, unification tries to identify two symbolic expressions. Unification is used in automated reasoning technology, which remains one of the major application areas of unification.
Techopedia Explains Unification
The term “unification” and its notion can be attributed to John Alan Robinson. He used unification as the basic operation of his resolution principle and also showed that unifiable terms have at most one general unifier. Several frameworks of unification are differentiated based on the expressions which occur in the unification problem. First order unification is one in which higher order variables (variables representing functions) are permitted in the expressions. Free unification or syntactic unification is one in which a solution is needed in order to make both sides of the equation equal.
