The Table

Controls

Fire Transitions

Philosopher States

Event Log

System initialized. All philosophers thinking.

How It Works

The Dining Philosophers Problem is a classic concurrency scenario:

  • 5 philosophers sit around a circular table
  • Between each pair is a shared fork
  • To eat, a philosopher needs both adjacent forks
  • Each philosopher picks up the left fork first, then the right

Deadlock occurs when all 5 simultaneously hold their left fork. Each waits for a right fork that will never be released. This demonstrates the four conditions for deadlock:

  • Mutual exclusion - forks can't be shared
  • Hold and wait - holding left, waiting for right
  • No preemption - can't force a philosopher to drop a fork
  • Circular wait - each waits on the next in a circle