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New math book rescues landmark topology proof

quantamagazine.org

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Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#11
Math is the most formal science there is. Why don't serious math journals require programmatically checked proofs for all publications, and instead rely on what essentially is a code review for a very large change request with extremely convoluted code to be vetted bug free by only a handful of experts?

P.S. Reviews are still needed to check novelty etc.

Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#12
post #11

Math is the most formal science there is. Why don't serious math journals require programmatically checked proofs for all publications, and instead rely on what essentially is a code review for a very large change request with extremely convoluted code to be vetted bug free by only a handful of experts? P.S. Reviews are still needed to check novelty etc.

> Math is the most formal science there is.

Can you prove that?

Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#13
post #3

I'd be interested in whether proofs like these will be formalized in proof assistants that can be checked with computer code, so that it removes doubt of error. It's something in math I'd like to see become more prevalent.

> I'd be interested in whether proofs like these will be formalized in proof assistants that can be checked with computer code, so that it removes doubt of error.

This does not remove doubt of error.

Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#14

So who gets credit for proving it? Freedman, the original author from 1981; or the authors of this book? If Freedman's proof has so many gaps, should it be considered more of a proof outline, or a motivation for believing a conjecture, and the current book be considered the actual proof? Or does Freedman get the glory? In that case, there's not much incentive for people to do what these book authors did. Which I supp…

It's not a strict exclusive-or choice. Credit will accrue to both Freedman and the authors of this book, because both advanced the state of the subject. And eventually perhaps further credit to someone who publishes a machine-verifiable proof, or finds a simpler way to understand the theorem.

Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#15

So who gets credit for proving it? Freedman, the original author from 1981; or the authors of this book? If Freedman's proof has so many gaps, should it be considered more of a proof outline, or a motivation for believing a conjecture, and the current book be considered the actual proof? Or does Freedman get the glory? In that case, there's not much incentive for people to do what these book authors did. Which I supp…

Well, thank God lots of scientists (mathematicians in this case) understand that transmission of knowledge is as important (or more so) as novelty. And that is their incentive.

Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#16
post #11

Math is the most formal science there is. Why don't serious math journals require programmatically checked proofs for all publications, and instead rely on what essentially is a code review for a very large change request with extremely convoluted code to be vetted bug free by only a handful of experts? P.S. Reviews are still needed to check novelty etc.

Is it possible to even check such a proof programmatically? Do we have that kind of technology? Do you also have to review the proof checking code to make sure you didn't make any errors in transcription from the original paper?

Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#17
post #11

Math is the most formal science there is. Why don't serious math journals require programmatically checked proofs for all publications, and instead rely on what essentially is a code review for a very large change request with extremely convoluted code to be vetted bug free by only a handful of experts? P.S. Reviews are still needed to check novelty etc.

> Math is the most formal science there is.

That's assuming you ascribe to viewing math as science.

> Why don't serious math journals require programmatically checked proofs for all publications

Presumably it has something to do with why formalized mathematics is rare: it's hard. Even relatively simple concepts become quite hard to deal with when fully formalized. I suspect that mathematics on this level is simply not amenable to the treatment that you envision (at least today).

Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#18
post #11

Math is the most formal science there is. Why don't serious math journals require programmatically checked proofs for all publications, and instead rely on what essentially is a code review for a very large change request with extremely convoluted code to be vetted bug free by only a handful of experts? P.S. Reviews are still needed to check novelty etc.

> Math is the most formal science there is. Can you prove that?

Formality is technically the degree of mathiness applied to a domain, since formal logic and any other framework of formalization decomposes to mathematics.

So... it's a tautology. Math is the most mathy math. Biology or psychology are less mathy maths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_...

Having provablility holes in the formal system doesn't imply the existence of other systems that could be decomposed from currently known or unknown symbols. In this universe, information at the level of string theory seems to describe the limits, so math, as she is wrote, is as formal as it gets.

The map is not the territory, so math, as a map, will always be less "formal" than reality itself. It's pretty firmly in second place, though.

Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#19
post #11

Math is the most formal science there is. Why don't serious math journals require programmatically checked proofs for all publications, and instead rely on what essentially is a code review for a very large change request with extremely convoluted code to be vetted bug free by only a handful of experts? P.S. Reviews are still needed to check novelty etc.

> Why don't serious math journals require programmatically checked proofs

... Because that would take 2+ orders of magnitude more work, and nobody has the time/attention budget for it.

This is sort of like asking: why did you single person write this 10-page short story instead of making a Hollywood-style feature film?

Re: New math book rescues landmark topology proof

#20
post #11

Math is the most formal science there is. Why don't serious math journals require programmatically checked proofs for all publications, and instead rely on what essentially is a code review for a very large change request with extremely convoluted code to be vetted bug free by only a handful of experts? P.S. Reviews are still needed to check novelty etc.

For the same reason Google does not formally prove the correctness of their code. It's technically feasible but impossibly complex to actually achieve.

Fully formalizing a proof with a tool like Coq or Isabelle is in and of itself a nontrivial problem.

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