Constructive mathematics – mathematics in which ‘there exists’ always means ‘we can construct’ – is enjoying a renaissance. Fifty years on from Bishop’s groundbreaking account of constructive analysis, constructive mathematics has spread out to touch almost all areas of mathematics and to have profound influence in theoretical computer science. This handbook gives the most complete overview of modern constructive mathematics, with contributions from leading specialists surveying the subject’s myriad aspects. Major themes include: constructive algebra and geometry, constructive analysis, constructive topology, (...) constructive logic and foundations of mathematics, and computational aspects of constructive mathematics. A series of introductory chapters provides graduate students and other newcomers to the subject with foundations for the surveys that follow. Edited by four of the most eminent experts in the field, this is an indispensable reference for constructive mathematicians and a fascinating vista of modern constructivism for the increasing number of researchers interested in constructive approaches. (shrink)

The paper presents a refined method of extracting reasonable and sometimes unexpected programs from classical proofs of formulas of the form ∀x∃yB . We also generalize previously known results, since B no longer needs to be quantifier-free, but only has to belong to a strictly larger class of so-called “goal formulas”. Furthermore we allow unproven lemmas D in the proof of ∀x∃yB , where D is a so-called “definite” formula.

Consider the problem which set V of propositional variables suffices for whenever, where, and ⊢c and ⊢i denote derivability in classical and intuitionistic implicational logic, respectively. We give a direct proof that stability for the final propositional variable of the (implicational) formula A is sufficient; as a corollary one obtains Glivenko's theorem. Conversely, using Glivenko's theorem one can give an alternative proof of our result. As an alternative to stability we then consider the Peirce formula. It is an easy consequence (...) of the result above that adding a single instance of the Peirce formula suffices to move from classical to intuitionistic derivability. Finally we consider the question whether one could do the same for minimal logic. Given a classical derivation of a propositional formula not involving ⊥, which instances of the Peirce formula suffice as additional premises to ensure derivability in minimal logic? We define a set of such Peirce formulas, and show that in general an unbounded number of them is necessary. (shrink)

Let A be a formula without implications, and Γ consist of formulas containing disjunction and falsity only negatively and implication only positively. Orevkov and Nadathur proved that classical derivability of A from Γ implies intuitionistic derivability, by a transformation of derivations in sequent calculi. We give a new proof of this result , where the input data are natural deduction proofs in long normal form involving stability axioms for relations; the proof gives a quadratic algorithm to remove the stability axioms. (...) This can be of interest for computational uses of classical proofs. (shrink)

This paper describes formalizations of Tait's normalization proof for the simply typed λ-calculus in the proof assistants Minlog, Coq and Isabelle/HOL. From the formal proofs programs are machine-extracted that implement variants of the well-known normalization-by-evaluation algorithm. The case study is used to test and compare the program extraction machineries of the three proof assistants in a non-trivial setting.

From a classical proof that the gcd of natural numbers a1 and a2 is a linear combination of the two, we extract by Gödel's Dialectica interpretation an algorithm computing the coefficients. The proof uses the minimum principle. We show generally how well-founded recursion can be used to Dialectica interpret well-founded induction, which is needed in the proof of the minimum principle. In the special case of the example above it turns out that we obtain a reasonable extracted term, representing an (...) algorithm close to Euclid's. (shrink)

Buchholz presented a method to build notation systems for infinite sequent-style derivations, analogous to well-known systems of notation for ordinals. The essential feature is that from a notation one can read off by a primitive recursive function its n th predecessor and, e.g. the last rule applied. Here we extend the method to the more general setting of infinite terms, in order to make it applicable in other proof-theoretic contexts as well as in recursion theory. As examples, we use the (...) method to 1. give a new proof of a well-known trade-off theorem , which says that detours through higher types can be eliminated by the use of transfinite recursion along higher ordinals, and 2. construct a continuous normalization operator with an explicit modulus of continuity. (shrink)

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Proof and Computation, held in Marktoberdorf, Germany, July 20 - August 1, 1993.

This is a tutorial for the Minlog Proof Assistant, version 5.0.

Several properties of monotone functionals (MF) and monotone majorizable functionals (MMF) used in the earlier work by the author and van de Pol are proved. It turns out that the terms of the simply typed lambda-calculus define MF, but adding primitive recursion, and even monotonic primitive recursion changes the situation: already Z.Z(1 — sg) is not MMF. It is proved that extensionality is not Dialectica-realizable by MMF, and a simple example of a MF which is not hereditarily majorizable is given.