Type inference in mathematics

Abstract

In the theory of programming languages, type inference is the process of inferring the type of an expression automatically, often making use of information from the context in which the expression appears. Such mechanisms turn out to be extremely useful in the practice of interactive theorem proving, whereby users interact with a computational proof assistant to construct formal axiomatic derivations of mathematical theorems. This article explains some of the mechanisms for type inference used by the Mathematical Components project, which is working towards a verification of the Feit-Thompson theorem