Interactive Proof Construction at the Task Level

Applied Logic Series, 2003

Formalizing mathematical proofs has as aim to represent arbitrary mathematical notions and proofs on a computer in order to construct a database of certified results useful to learn and develop the subject. At present it is mathematically not appealing to construct formal proofs. To make formalzing more mathematician-friendly one should have a good interface for proofs, definitions and computations. The proof-assistant Mizar does have a good interface for proofs, but not for making computations. Other assistants, like Coq based on type theory, does have a good interface for computations, but not for proofs. This paper sketches ways in which proofs are represented in a mathematical way. Although the underlying formalized statements come from the system Coq, this is not essential. Mainly the paper has as aim to convince implementers of mathematical assistants to make systems in such a way that formalizing proofs becomes natural. Much further developed is the work on Isar providing a mathematical proof language for the assistant Isabelle. The approach in this paper is to approximate a proof language by writing proof-sketches, a notion by Wiedijk, with the aim that they should eventually be verifiable by a proof-checker. Nederpelt [2002] has a different approach: there the emphasis is on the ease of providing formalizations of mathematical definitions.

Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 2009

Interactive Theorem Provers (ITPs) are tools meant to assist the user during the formal development of mathematics. Automatic proof searching procedures are a desirable aid, and most ITPs supply the user with an extensive set of facilities to improve automation. However, the black-box nature of most automatic procedure conflicts with the interactive nature of these tools: a newcomer running an automatic procedure learns nothing by its execution (especially in case of failure), and a trained user has no opportunities to interactively guide the procedure towards the solution, e.g. pruning wrong or not promising branches of the search tree. In this paper we discuss the implementation of the resolution based automatic procedure of the Matita ITP, explicitly conceived to be interactively driven by the user through a suitable, simple graphical interface.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

This paper introduces Proof General Kit, a framework for software components tailored to interactive proof development. The goal of the framework is to enable flexible environments for managing formal proofs across their life-cycle: creation, maintenance and exploitation. The framework connects together different kinds of component, exchanging messages using a common communication infrastructure and protocol called PGIP. The main channel connects provers to displays. Provers are the back-end interactive proof engines and displays are components for interacting with the user, allowing browsing or editing of proofs. At the core of the framework is a broker middleware component which manages proof-in-progress and mediates between components.

Journal of Automated Reasoning, 1993

imps is an Interactive Mathematical Proof System intended as a general purpose tool for formulating and applying mathematics in a familiar fashion. The logic of imps is based on a version of simple type theory with partial functions and subtypes. Mathematical specification and inference are performed relative to axiomatic theories, which can be related to one another via inclusion and theory interpretation. imps provides relatively large primitive inference steps to facilitate human control of the deductive process and human comprehension of the resulting proofs. An initial theory library containing almost a thousand repeatable proofs covers significant portions of logic, algebra and analysis, and provides some support for modeling applications in computer science.

2008

Interactive Theorem Provers (ITPs) are tools meant to assist the user during the formal development of mathematics. Automatic proof searching procedures are a desirable aid, and most ITPs supply the user with an extensive set of facilities to improve automation. However, the black-box nature of most automatic procedure conflicts with the interactive nature of these tools: a newcomer running an automatic procedure learns nothing by its execution (especially in case of failure), and a trained user has no opportunities to interactively guide the procedure towards the solution, e.g. pruning wrong or not promising branches of the search tree. In this paper we discuss the implementation of the resolution based automatic procedure of the Matita ITP, explicitly conceived to be interactively driven by the user through a suitable, simple graphical interface.

Proceedings of the fifth ACM SIGSOFT symposium on Software development environments - SDE 5, 1992

{This paper explains how to add a modern user interface to existing theorem provers, using principles and tools designed for programming environments.

2019

In this paper, we introduce a system called GamePad that can be used to explore the application of machine learning methods to theorem proving in the Coq proof assistant. Interactive theorem provers such as Coq enable users to construct machine-checkable proofs in a step-by-step manner. Hence, they provide an opportunity to explore theorem proving with human supervision. We use GamePad to synthesize proofs for a simple algebraic rewrite problem and train baseline models for a formalization of the Feit-Thompson theorem. We address position evaluation (i.e., predict the number of proof steps left) and tactic prediction (i.e., predict the next proof step) tasks, which arise naturally in tactic-based theorem proving.

Mathematical Structures in Computer Science, 2014

In this paper, aimed at dependently typed programmers, we present a novel connection between automated and interactive theorem proving paradigms. The novelty is that the connection offers a better trade-off between usability, efficiency and soundness when compared to existing techniques. This technique allows for a powerful interactive proof framework that facilitates efficient verification of finite domain theorems and guided construction of the proof of infinite domain theorems. Such situations typically occur with industrial verification. As a case study, an embedding of SAT and CTL model checking is presented, both of which have been implemented for the dependently typed proof assistant Agda.Finally, an example of a real world railway control system is presented, and shown using our proof framework to be safe with respect to an abstract model of trains not colliding or derailing. We demonstrate how to formulate safety directly and show using interactive theorem proving that sign...

International Journal of Computing Anticipatory Systems (CASYS), 1999

Current semi-automated theorem provers are often advertised as “mathematical assistant systems”. However, these tools behave too passively and in a stereotypic way to meet this ambitious goal because they lack the capability to adequately take into account requirements on proof search control and user demands for their own actions. Motivated by this deficit, we have incorporated several facilities into the ªMEGA proof development system that anticipate a number of divergent factors, based on mathematical knowledge, proof ...

Journal of Functional Programming, 1999

The design of theorem provers, especially in the LCF-prover family, has strongly profited from functional programming. This paper attempts to develop a metaphor suited to visualize the LCF-style prover design, and a methodology for the implementation of graphical user interfaces for these provers and encapsulations of formal methods. In this problem domain, particular attention has to be paid to the need to construct a variety of objects, keep track of their interdependencies and provide support for their reconstruction as a consequence of changes. We present a prototypical implementation of a generic and open interface system architecture, and show how it can be instantiated to an interface for Isabelle, called IsaWin, as well as to a tailored tool for transformational program development, called TAS.