Final Report Summary - PROOFCERT (ProofCert: Broad Spectrum Proof Certificates)
The ProofCert project has successfully designed and implemented a framework for defining the meaning of "proof certificates". Such a definition is a necessary step if the world's theorem provers (of which there are many with radically different designs) are to cooperate in validating complex mathematical theorems and the correctness of safety critical software. This framework allows for a great deal of flexibility in what can be defined as well as provides trade-offs between the size of proof certificates and the time necessary to check them. Such flexibility requires viewing the boundary between deduction and computation as fluid. A reference proof checker has been build and can check a number of proof formats for both classical and intuitionistic (first-order) logic. The ProofCert project has also designed approaches to proof certificate formats that can work for model checking and inductive theorem proving.