15-815 Automated Theorem Proving (Fa 99)
Instructor: Frank Pfenning
NOTE: due to the expected undergraduate participation, this class will start the first week of classes with introductory material on logic during the IC. Extensive notes on this material will be available to allow graduate students to join the class after the IC if they choose to.

Description: This course provides a thorough, hands-on introduction to automated theorem proving. It consists of a traditional lecture component and a joint project in which we will construct a theorem prover. The lecture component introduces the basic concepts and techniques of logic followed by successive refinement towards more efficient implementations. The basic theorem proving paradigms we plan to cover are tactics, tableaux, and the inverse method, all three of which are applicable to classical and non-classical logics. Time permitting we may also cover some aspects of equational and inductive reasoning.

Prerequisites: 15-212/ML or 15-312 for undergraduates

Recommended / Required Text: None. Course notes and papers will be handed out

Evaluation Process:
25% homework, 25% midterm, 50% project letter grades, pass/fail upon request no final exam

List of topics to be covered:

• Natural Deduction
• Sequent Calculi
• Unification
• Tactics
• Tableaux
• Inverse Method
• Term Indexing
• Subsumption
• Basic Paramodulation
• Ordered Resolution
• Induction