Comments on: Machine-Checkable Proofs

By: schluehk

schluehk — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 06:19:51 +0000

From Friedmans paper ( about proof-assistants ):

1. The user orchestrates the refining of goals and
hypotheses according to a natural deduction framework. This
is in accordance with the general logical organization of
actual mathematical proofs.

2. The user cites definitions and theorems from
â€˜librariesâ€™. The proper construction of libraries is
absolutely crucial in practice. Supports strong
reusability.

3. It is also crucial that the proof assistant be able to
make relatively trivial inferences on its own. Experience
shows that otherwise the process is just too time
consuming.

Is there actually a mathematician that works ( or has worked ) in the manner proposed by this scheme of rationality? It appears to me this scheme could be valuable if proofs have customers just like industrial software and there were a bulk of employed test enigneers used to perform this kind of work and enhance libraries. I wonder how the agile variant of this practise would look like?

By: slawekk

slawekk — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:44:59 +0000

>I now have to type crap like \int_{x_i}^{x_{i+1}} dx

Only if you choose to use a plain text editor to write your tex files. With better authoring tools (like LYX) you can choose the lovely curvy symbol from a menu and see it immediately on the screen.

>When formally checked proofs actually look like recognisable mathematics

Proofs witten in Isabelle’s Isar do look like recognizable mathematics. Those based on ZF logic can be read like standard mathematical proofs, no need for learning special syntax. The only valid complain is that they are more detailed that some readers are used to.

>can be entered in a friendly way,

Yes, that’s a totally different story. The tools for writing formalized mathematics are bad.

By: sigfpe

sigfpe — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 16:47:56 +0000

We haven’t even solved the problem of representing mathematics on a computer, let alone proving it. Despite the power of computers to render images of stunning beauty we still don’t have an efficient means of expressing ourselves on a computer. Mathematical notation was designed and refined over centuries going back to numerals imported from India via the Arab world. But with the advent of computers, Instead of things like the lovely curvy symbol introduced by Fourier, I now have to type crap like \int_{x_i}^{x_{i+1}} dx. When I look at most proof-checking systems they make me want to run a mile. When formally checked proofs actually look like recognisable mathematics, and can be entered in a friendly way, then some of the resistance to them might go away.

By: michael

michael — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 07:27:27 +0000

While wishing to know the “why” is certainly a desire, that knowledge to me seems to come from the breadth of a result to other things, thus the deeper “why” is almost certainly going to come later anyway. I feel I could accomplished quite a lot with an oracle providing handholds in the rock face, so to speak. i.e. it still seems worth it since you could still get somewhere.

By: slawekk

slawekk — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:51:54 +0000

HOL (the logic) and HOL Light (the proof assistant) were designed and optimized for software verification, not for presenting machine-checkable mathematical proofs. In software verification the interest is in the fact that a theorem has been proven to be true, while mathematicians would also like to read the proof to find out *why* it is true. Other proof assistants are able to provide much more readable presentations of machine-checkable proofs.