A new foundational crisis in mathematics, is it really happening?

The article reconsiders the position of the foundations of mathematics after the discovery of HoTT. Discussion that this discovery has generated in the community of mathematicians, philosophers and computer scientists might indicate a new crisis in the foundation of mathematics. By examining the mathematical facts behind HoTT and their relation with the existing foundations, we conclude that the present crisis is not one. We reiterate a pluralist vision of the foundations of mathematics. The article contains a short survey of the mathematical and historical background needed to understand the main tenets of the foundational issues.Comment: Final versio

Univalent Foundations and the UniMath Library

We give a concise presentation of the Univalent Foundations of mathematics outlining the main ideas, followed by a discussion of the UniMath library of formalized mathematics implementing the ideas of the Univalent Foundations (section 1), and the challenges one faces in attempting to design a large-scale library of formalized mathematics (section 2). This leads us to a general discussion about the links between architecture and mathematics where a meeting of minds is revealed between architects and mathematicians (section 3). On the way our odyssey from the foundations to the "horizon" of mathematics will lead us to meet the mathematicians David Hilbert and Nicolas Bourbaki as well as the architect Christopher Alexander

The real projective spaces in homotopy type theory

Homotopy type theory is a version of Martin-L\"of type theory taking advantage of its homotopical models. In particular, we can use and construct objects of homotopy theory and reason about them using higher inductive types. In this article, we construct the real projective spaces, key players in homotopy theory, as certain higher inductive types in homotopy type theory. The classical definition of RP(n), as the quotient space identifying antipodal points of the n-sphere, does not translate directly to homotopy type theory. Instead, we define RP(n) by induction on n simultaneously with its tautological bundle of 2-element sets. As the base case, we take RP(-1) to be the empty type. In the inductive step, we take RP(n+1) to be the mapping cone of the projection map of the tautological bundle of RP(n), and we use its universal property and the univalence axiom to define the tautological bundle on RP(n+1). By showing that the total space of the tautological bundle of RP(n) is the n-sphere, we retrieve the classical description of RP(n+1) as RP(n) with an (n+1)-cell attached to it. The infinite dimensional real projective space, defined as the sequential colimit of the RP(n) with the canonical inclusion maps, is equivalent to the Eilenberg-MacLane space K(Z/2Z,1), which here arises as the subtype of the universe consisting of 2-element types. Indeed, the infinite dimensional projective space classifies the 0-sphere bundles, which one can think of as synthetic line bundles. These constructions in homotopy type theory further illustrate the utility of homotopy type theory, including the interplay of type theoretic and homotopy theoretic ideas.Comment: 8 pages, to appear in proceedings of LICS 201

Semi-simplicial Types in Logic-enriched Homotopy Type Theory

The problem of defining Semi-Simplicial Types (SSTs) in Homotopy Type Theory (HoTT) has been recognized as important during the Year of Univalent Foundations at the Institute of Advanced Study. According to the interpretation of HoTT in Quillen model categories, SSTs are type-theoretic versions of Reedy fibrant semi-simplicial objects in a model category and simplicial and semi-simplicial objects play a crucial role in many constructions in homotopy theory and higher category theory. Attempts to define SSTs in HoTT lead to some difficulties such as the need of infinitary assumptions which are beyond HoTT with only non-strict equality types. Voevodsky proposed a definition of SSTs in Homotopy Type System (HTS), an extension of HoTT with non-fibrant types, including an extensional strict equality type. However, HTS does not have the desirable computational properties such as decidability of type checking and strong normalization. In this paper, we study a logic-enriched homotopy type theory, an alternative extension of HoTT with equational logic based on the idea of logic-enriched type theories. In contrast to Voevodskys HTS, all types in our system are fibrant and it can be implemented in existing proof assistants. We show how SSTs can be defined in our system and outline an implementation in the proof assistant Plastic

Sets in homotopy type theory

Homotopy Type Theory may be seen as an internal language for the $\infty$-category of weak $\infty$-groupoids which in particular models the univalence axiom. Voevodsky proposes this language for weak $\infty$-groupoids as a new foundation for mathematics called the Univalent Foundations of Mathematics. It includes the sets as weak $\infty$-groupoids with contractible connected components, and thereby it includes (much of) the traditional set theoretical foundations as a special case. We thus wonder whether those `discrete' groupoids do in fact form a (predicative) topos. More generally, homotopy type theory is conjectured to be the internal language of `elementary' $\infty$-toposes. We prove that sets in homotopy type theory form a $\Pi W$-pretopos. This is similar to the fact that the $0$-truncation of an $\infty$-topos is a topos. We show that both a subobject classifier and a $0$-object classifier are available for the type theoretical universe of sets. However, both of these are large and moreover, the $0$-object classifier for sets is a function between $1$-types (i.e. groupoids) rather than between sets. Assuming an impredicative propositional resizing rule we may render the subobject classifier small and then we actually obtain a topos of sets