Noting that lemmas are a key feature of mathematics, we engage in an
investigation of the role of lemmas in automated theorem proving. The paper
describes experiments with a combined system involving learning technology that
generates useful lemmas for automated theorem provers, demonstrating
improvement for several representative systems and solving a hard problem not
solved by any system for twenty years. By focusing on condensed detachment
problems we simplify the setting considerably, allowing us to get at the
essence of lemmas and their role in proof search
