Proofs Without Syntax

"[M]athematicians care no more for logic than logicians for mathematics." Augustus de Morgan, 1868. Proofs are traditionally syntactic, inductively generated objects. This paper presents an abstract mathematical formulation of propositional calculus (propositional logic) in which proofs are combinatorial (graph-theoretic), rather than syntactic. It defines a *combinatorial proof* of a proposition P as a graph homomorphism h : C -> G(P), where G(P) is a graph associated with P and C is a coloured graph. The main theorem is soundness and completeness: P is true iff there exists a combinatorial proof h : C -> G(P).Comment: Appears in Annals of Mathematics, 2006. 5 pages + references. Version 1 is submitted version; v3 is final published version (in two-column format rather than Annals style). Changes for v2: dualised definition of combinatorial truth, thereby shortening some subsequent proofs; added references; corrected typos; minor reworking of some sentences/paragraphs; added comments on polynomial-time correctness (referee request). Changes for v3: corrected two typos, reworded one sentence, repeated a citation in Notes sectio

A Provably Correct Translation of the λ-Calculus into a Mathematical Model of C++

We introduce a translation of the simply typed λ-calculus into C++, and give a mathematical proof of the correctness of this translation. For this purpose we develop a suitable fragment of C++ together with a denotational semantics. We introduce a formal translation of the λ-calculus into this fragment, and show that this translation is correct with respect to the denotational semantics. We show as well a completeness result, namely that by translating λ-terms we obtain essentially all C++ terms in this fragment. We introduce a mathematical model for the evaluation of programs of this fragment, and show that the evaluation computes the correct result with respect to this semantics.

On the equivalence between MV-algebras and ll-groups with strong unit

In "A new proof of the completeness of the Lukasiewicz axioms"} (Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 88) C.C. Chang proved that any totally ordered $MV$-algebra $A$ was isomorphic to the segment $A \cong \Gamma(A^*, u)$ of a totally ordered $l$-group with strong unit $A^*$. This was done by the simple intuitive idea of putting denumerable copies of $A$ on top of each other (indexed by the integers). Moreover, he also show that any such group $G$ can be recovered from its segment since $G \cong \Gamma(G, u)^*$, establishing an equivalence of categories. In "Interpretation of AF $C^*$-algebras in Lukasiewicz sentential calculus" (J. Funct. Anal. Vol. 65) D. Mundici extended this result to arbitrary $MV$-algebras and $l$-groups with strong unit. He takes the representation of $A$ as a sub-direct product of chains $A_i$, and observes that $A \overset {} {\hookrightarrow} \prod_i G_i$ where $G_i = A_i^*$. Then he let $A^*$ be the $l$-subgroup generated by $A$ inside $\prod_i G_i$. He proves that this idea works, and establish an equivalence of categories in a rather elaborate way by means of his concept of good sequences and its complicated arithmetics. In this note, essentially self-contained except for Chang's result, we give a simple proof of this equivalence taking advantage directly of the arithmetics of the the product $l$-group $\prod_i G_i$, avoiding entirely the notion of good sequence.Comment: 6 page

Completeness of the ZX-Calculus

The ZX-Calculus is a graphical language for diagrammatic reasoning in quantum mechanics and quantum information theory. It comes equipped with an equational presentation. We focus here on a very important property of the language: completeness, which roughly ensures the equational theory captures all of quantum mechanics. We first improve on the known-to-be-complete presentation for the so-called Clifford fragment of the language - a restriction that is not universal - by adding some axioms. Thanks to a system of back-and-forth translation between the ZX-Calculus and a third-party complete graphical language, we prove that the provided axiomatisation is complete for the first approximately universal fragment of the language, namely Clifford+T. We then prove that the expressive power of this presentation, though aimed at achieving completeness for the aforementioned restriction, extends beyond Clifford+T, to a class of diagrams that we call linear with Clifford+T constants. We use another version of the third-party language - and an adapted system of back-and-forth translation - to complete the language for the ZX-Calculus as a whole, that is, with no restriction. We briefly discuss the added axioms, and finally, we provide a complete axiomatisation for an altered version of the language which involves an additional generator, making the presentation simpler

Hierarchic Superposition Revisited

Many applications of automated deduction require reasoning in first-order logic modulo background theories, in particular some form of integer arithmetic. A major unsolved research challenge is to design theorem provers that are "reasonably complete" even in the presence of free function symbols ranging into a background theory sort. The hierarchic superposition calculus of Bachmair, Ganzinger, and Waldmann already supports such symbols, but, as we demonstrate, not optimally. This paper aims to rectify the situation by introducing a novel form of clause abstraction, a core component in the hierarchic superposition calculus for transforming clauses into a form needed for internal operation. We argue for the benefits of the resulting calculus and provide two new completeness results: one for the fragment where all background-sorted terms are ground and another one for a special case of linear (integer or rational) arithmetic as a background theory