Lightweight Formal Verification in Classroom Instruction of Reasoning about Functional Code

In college courses dealing with material that requires mathematical rigor, the adoption of a machine-readable representation for formal arguments can be advantageous. Students can focus on a specific collection of constructs that are represented consistently. Examples and counterexamples can be evaluated. Assignments can be assembled and checked with the help of an automated formal reasoning system. However, usability and accessibility do not have a high priority and are not addressed sufficiently well in the design of many existing machine-readable representations and corresponding formal reasoning systems. In earlier work [Lap09], we attempt to address this broad problem by proposing several specific design criteria organized around the notion of a natural context: the sphere of awareness a working human user maintains of the relevant constructs, arguments, experiences, and background materials necessary to accomplish the task at hand. We report on our attempt to evaluate our proposed design criteria by deploying within the classroom a lightweight formal verification system designed according to these criteria. The lightweight formal verification system was used within the instruction of a common application of formal reasoning: proving by induction formal propositions about functional code. We present all of the formal reasoning examples and assignments considered during this deployment, most of which are drawn directly from an introductory text on functional programming. We demonstrate how the design of the system improves the effectiveness and understandability of the examples, and how it aids in the instruction of basic formal reasoning techniques. We make brief remarks about the practical and administrative implications of the system’s design from the perspectives of the student, the instructor, and the grader

3-filiform Leibniz algebras of maximum length

This work completes the study of the solvable Leibniz algebras, more precisely, it completes the classi cation of the 3- liform Leibniz algebras of maximum length [4]. Moreover, due to the good structure of the algebras of maximum length, we also tackle some of their cohomological properties. Our main tools are the previous result of Cabezas and Pastor [3], the construction of appropriate homogeneous basis in the considered connected gradation and the computational support provided by the two programs implemented in the software Mathematica.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MTM2013–43687–

C1,αC^{1,\alpha} regularity of solutions of degenerate fully non-linear elliptic equations

In the present paper, a class of fully non-linear elliptic equations are considered, which are degenerate as the gradient becomes small. H\"older estimates obtained by the first author (2011) are combined with new Lipschitz estimates obtained through the Ishii-Lions method in order to get $C^{1,\alpha}$ estimates for solutions of these equations.Comment: Submitte

The Surprise Examination Paradox and the Second Incompleteness Theorem

We give a new proof for Godel's second incompleteness theorem, based on Kolmogorov complexity, Chaitin's incompleteness theorem, and an argument that resembles the surprise examination paradox. We then go the other way around and suggest that the second incompleteness theorem gives a possible resolution of the surprise examination paradox. Roughly speaking, we argue that the flaw in the derivation of the paradox is that it contains a hidden assumption that one can prove the consistency of the mathematical theory in which the derivation is done; which is impossible by the second incompleteness theorem.Comment: 8 page

A discrete Schrodinger spectral problem and associated evolution equations

A recently proposed discrete version of the Schrodinger spectral problem is considered. The whole hierarchy of differential-difference nonlinear evolution equations associated to this spectral problem is derived. It is shown that a discrete version of the KdV, sine-Gordon and Liouville equations are included and that the so called `inverse' class in the hierarchy is local. The whole class of related Darboux and Backlund transformations is also exhibited.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX2