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The Students Proof Assistant (SPA) aims to both teach how to use a proof assistant like Isabelle and also to teach how reliable proof assistants are built. Technically it is a miniature proof assistant inside the Isabelle proof assistant. In addition we conjecture that a good way to teach structured proving is with a concrete prover where the connection between semantics, proof system, and prover is clear. The proofs in Lamports TLAPS proof assistant have a very similar structure to those in the declarative prover SPA. To illustrate this we compare a proof of Pelletiers problem 43 in TLAPS, Isabelle/Isar and SPA. We also consider Pelletiers problem 34, also known as Andrewss Challenge, where students are encouraged to develop their own justification function and thus obtain a lot of insight into the proof assistant. Although SPA is fully functional we have so far only used it in a few educational scenarios.
RedPRL is an experimental proof assistant based on Cartesian cubical computational type theory, a new type theory for higher-dimensional constructions inspired by homotopy type theory. In the style of Nuprl, RedPRL users employ tactics to establish behavioral properties of cubical functional programs embodying the constructive content of proofs. Notably, RedPRL implements a two-level type theory, allowing an extensional, proof-irrelevant notion of exact equality to coexist with a higher-dimensional proof-relevant notion of paths.
The interoperability of proof assistants and the integration of their libraries is a highly valued but elusive goal in the field of theorem proving. As a preparatory step, in previous work, we translated the libraries of multiple proof assistants, specifically the ones of Coq, HOL Light, IMPS, Isabelle, Mizar, and PVS into a universal format: OMDoc/MMT. Each translation presented tremendous theoretical, technical, and social challenges, some universal and some system-specific, some solvable and some still open. In this paper, we survey these challenges and compare and evaluate the solutions we chose. We believe similar library translations will be an essential part of any future system interoperability solution and our experiences will prove valuable to others undertaking such efforts.
The Abella interactive theorem prover has proven to be an effective vehicle for reasoning about relational specifications. However, the system has a limitation that arises from the fact that it is based on a simply typed logic: formalizations that are identical except in the respect that they apply to different types have to be repeated at each type. We develop an approach that overcomes this limitation while preserving the logical underpinnings of the system. In this approach object constructors, formulas and other relevant logical notions are allowed to be parameterized by types, with the interpretation that they stand for the (infinite) collection of corresponding constructs that are obtained by instantiating the type parameters. The proof structures that we consider for formulas that are schematized in this fashion are limited to ones whose type instances are valid proofs in the simply typed logic. We develop schematic proof rules that ensure this property, a task that is complicated by the fact that type information influences the notion of unification that plays a key role in the logic. Our ideas, which have been implemented in an updated version of the system, accommodate schematic polymorphism both in the core logic of Abella and in the executable specification logic that it embeds.
We introduce Prove-It, a Python-based general-purpose interactive theorem-proving assistant designed with the goal of making formal theorem proving as easy and natural as informal theorem proving (with moderate training). Prove-It uses a highly-flexible Jupyter notebook-based user interface that documents interactions and proof steps using LaTeX. We review Prove-Its highly expressive representation of expressions, judgments, theorems, and proofs; demonstrate the system by constructing a traditional proof-by-contradiction that $sqrt{2} otinmathbb{Q}$; and discuss how the system avoids inconsistencies such as Russells and Currys paradoxes. Extensive documentation is provided in the appendices about core elements of the system. Current development and future work includes promising applications to quantum circuit manipulation and quantum algorithm verification.
Recently, we developed an automated theorem prover for projective incidence geometry. This prover, based on a combinatorial approach using matroids, proceeds by saturation using the matroid rules. It is designed as an independent tool, implemented in C, which takes a geometric configuration as input and produces as output some Coq proof scripts: the statement of the expected theorem, a proof script proving the theorem and possibly some auxiliary lemmas. In this document, we show how to embed such an external tool as a plugin in Coq so that it can be used as a simple tactic.