Skip to main content

Computational metatheory in Nuprl

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 310))

Abstract

This paper describes an implementation within Nuprl of mechanisms that support the use of Nuprl's type theory as a language for constructing theorem-proving procedures. The main component of the implementation is a large library of definitions, theorems and proofs. This library may be regarded as the beginning of a book of formal mathematics; it contains the formal development and explanation of a useful subset of Nuprl's metatheory, and of a mechanism for translating results established about this embedded metatheory to the object level. Nuprl's rich type theory, besides permitting the internal development of this partial reflection mechanism, allows us to make abstractions that drastically reduce the burden of establishing the correctness of new theorem-proving procedures. Our library includes a formally verified term-rewriting system.

This research was supported in part by NSF grant CCR-8616552.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Errett Bishop. Foundations of Constructive Analysis. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967.

    Google Scholar 

  2. R. S. Boyer and J Strother Moore. Metafunctions: proving them correct and using them efficiently as new proof procedures. In R. S. Boyer and J Strother Moore, editors, The Correctness Problem in Computer Science, chapter 3, Academic Press, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Robert L. Constable and Scott F. Smith. Partial objects in constructive type theory. In Proceedings of the Second Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, IEEE, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Robert L. Constable, et al. Implementing Mathematics with the Nuprl Proof Development System. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Martin Davis and Jacob T. Schwartz. Metamathematical extensibility for theorem verifiers and proof-checkers. Computers and Mathematics with Applications, 5:217–230, 1979.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. N.G. de Bruijn. The mathematical language AUTOMATH, its usage and some of its extensions. In Symposium on Automatic Demonstration, Lecture Notes in Mathematics vol. 125, pages 29–61, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1970.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Michael J. Gordon, Robin Milner, and Christopher P. Wadsworth. Edinburgh LCF: A Mechanized Logic of Computation. Volume 78 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Robert Harper, Furio Honsell, and Gordon Plotkin. A framework for defining logics. In The Second Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, IEEE, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Douglas J. Howe. Automating Reasoning in an Implementation of Constructive Type Theory. PhD thesis, Cornell University, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Todd B. Knoblock. Metamathematical Extensibility in Type Theory. PhD thesis, Cornell University, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Todd B. Knoblock and Robert L. Constable. Formalized metareasoning in type theory. In Proceedings of the First Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, IEEE, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Per Martin-Löf. Constructive mathematics and computer programming. In Sixth International Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, pages 153–175, North Holland, Amsterdam, 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Lawrence C. Paulson. A higher-order implementation of rewriting. Science of Computer Programming, 3:119–149, 1983.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Richard W. Weyhrauch. Prolegomena to a theory of formal reasoning. Artificial Intelligence, 13:133–170, 1980.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Ewing Lusk Ross Overbeek

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1988 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Howe, D.J. (1988). Computational metatheory in Nuprl. In: Lusk, E., Overbeek, R. (eds) 9th International Conference on Automated Deduction. CADE 1988. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 310. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0012835

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0012835

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19343-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-39216-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics