University of Coimbra, Portugal
Abstract:The ThEdu series pursues the smooth transition from an intuitive way of doing mathematics at secondary school to a more formal approach to the subject in STEM education, while favouring software support for this transition by exploiting the power of theorem-proving technologies. What follows is a brief description of how the present volume contributes to this enterprise. The 12th International Workshop on Theorem Proving Components for Educational Software(ThEdu'23), was a satellite event of the 29th international Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE 2023), July 1-4, 2023, Rome, Italy. ThEdu'23 was very successful, with one invited talk, by Yves Bertot (Inria, France), "The challenges of using Type Theory to teach Mathematics", and seven regular contributions. An open call for papers was then issued, to which eight contributions were submitted. Seven submissions have been accepted by our reviewers, who jointly produced at least three careful reports on each of the contributions. The resulting revised papers are collected in the present volume. We, the volume editors, hope that this collection of papers will further promote the development of theorem-proving based software, and that it will allow to improve the mutual understanding between computer scientists, mathematicians and stakeholders in education. PC Chairs:Julien Narboux (University of Strasbourg, France); Walther Neuper (JKU, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria); Pedro Quaresma (University of Coimbra, Portugal)
Abstract:The pursue of what are properties that can be identified to permit an automated reasoning program to generate and find new and interesting theorems is an interesting research goal (pun intended). The automatic discovery of new theorems is a goal in itself, and it has been addressed in specific areas, with different methods. The separation of the "weeds", uninteresting, trivial facts, from the "wheat", new and interesting facts, is much harder, but is also being addressed by different authors using different approaches. In this paper we will focus on geometry. We present and discuss different approaches for the automatic discovery of geometric theorems (and properties), and different metrics to find the interesting theorems among all those that were generated. After this description we will introduce the first result of this article: an undecidability result proving that having an algorithmic procedure that decides for every possible Turing Machine that produces theorems, whether it is able to produce also interesting theorems, is an undecidable problem. Consequently, we will argue that judging whether a theorem prover is able to produce interesting theorems remains a non deterministic task, at best a task to be addressed by program based in an algorithm guided by heuristics criteria. Therefore, as a human, to satisfy this task two things are necessary: an expert survey that sheds light on what a theorem prover/finder of interesting geometric theorems is, and - to enable this analysis - other surveys that clarify metrics and approaches related to the interestingness of geometric theorems. In the conclusion of this article we will introduce the structure of two of these surveys - the second result of this article - and we will discuss some future work.
Abstract:ADG is a forum to exchange ideas and views, to present research results and progress, and to demonstrate software tools at the intersection between geometry and automated deduction. The conference is held every two years. The previous editions of ADG were held in Hagenberg in 2021 (online, postponed from 2020 due to COVID-19), Nanning in 2018, Strasbourg in 2016, Coimbra in 2014, Edinburgh in 2012, Munich in 2010, Shanghai in 2008, Pontevedra in 2006, Gainesville in 2004, Hagenberg in 2002, Zurich in 2000, Beijing in 1998, and Toulouse in 1996. The 14th edition, ADG 2023, was held in Belgrade, Serbia, in September 20-22, 2023. This edition of ADG had an additional special focus topic, Deduction in Education. Invited Speakers: Julien Narboux, University of Strasbourg, France "Formalisation, arithmetization and automatisation of geometry"; Filip Mari\'c, University of Belgrade, Serbia, "Automatization, formalization and visualization of hyperbolic geometry"; Zlatan Magajna, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, "Workshop OK Geometry"
Abstract:The introduction of automated deduction systems in secondary schools face several bottlenecks. Beyond the problems related with the curricula and the teachers, the dissonance between the outcomes of the geometry automated theorem provers and the normal practice of conjecturing and proving in schools is a major barrier to a wider use of such tools in an educational environment. Since the early implementations of geometry automated theorem provers, applications of artificial intelligence methods, synthetic provers based on inference rules and using forward chaining reasoning are considered to be more suited for education proposes. Choosing an appropriate set of rules and an automated method that can use those rules is a major challenge. We discuss one such rule set and its implementation using the geometry deductive databases method (GDDM). The approach is tested using some chosen geometric conjectures that could be the goal of a 7th year class (approx. 12-year-old students). A lesson plan is presented, its goal is the introduction of formal demonstration of proving geometric theorems, trying to motivate students to that goal
Abstract:The ThEdu series pursues the smooth transition from an intuitive way of doing mathematics at secondary school to a more formal approach to the subject in STEM education, while favouring software support for this transition by exploiting the power of theorem-proving technologies. What follows is a brief description of how the present volume contributes to this enterprise. The 11th International Workshop on Theorem Proving Components for Educational Software (ThEdu'22), was a satellite event of the 8th Federated Logic Conference (FLoC 2022), July 31-August 12, 2022, Haifa, Israel ThEdu'22 was a vibrant workshop, with two invited talk by Thierry Dana-Picard (Jerusalem College of Technology, Jerusalem, Israel) and Yoni Zohar (Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv, Israel) and four contributions. An open call for papers was then issued, and attracted seven submissions. Those submissions have been accepted by our reviewers, who jointly produced at least three careful reports on each of the contributions. The resulting revised papers are collected in the present volume. The contributions in this volume are a faithful representation of the wide spectrum of ThEdu, ranging from those more focused on the automated deduction research, not losing track of the possible applications in an educational setting, to those focused on the applications, in educational settings, of automated deduction tools and methods. We, the volume editors, hope that this collection of papers will further promote the development of theorem-proving based software, and that it will allow to improve the mutual understanding between computer scientists, mathematicians and stakeholders in education. While this volume goes to press, the next edition of the ThEdu workshop is being prepared: ThEdu'23 will be a satellite event of the 29th international Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE 2023), July 1-4, 2023, Rome, Italy.
Abstract:The introduction of automated deduction systems in secondary schools face several bottlenecks, the absence of the subject of rigorous mathematical demonstrations in the curricula, the lack of knowledge by the teachers about the subject and the difficulty of tackling the task by automatic means. Despite those difficulties we claim that the subject of automated deduction in geometry can be introduced, by addressing it in particular cases: simple to manipulate by students and teachers and reasonably easy to be dealt by automatic deduction tools. The subject is discussed by addressing four secondary schools geometry problems: their rigorous proofs, visual proofs, numeric proofs, algebraic formal proofs, synthetic formal proofs, or the lack of them. For these problems we discuss a lesson plan to address them with the help of Information and Communications Technology, more specifically, automated deduction tools.
Abstract:This EPTCS volume contains the proceedings of the ThEdu'21 workshop, promoted on 11 July 2021, as a satellite event of CADE-28. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CADE-28 and all its co-located events happened as virtual events. ThEdu'21 was a vibrant workshop, with an invited talk by Gilles Dowek (ENS Paris-Saclay), eleven contributions, and one demonstration. After the workshop an open call for papers was issued and attracted 10 submissions, 7 of which have been accepted by the reviewers, and collected in the present post-proceedings volume. The ThEdu series pursues the smooth transition from an intuitive way of doing mathematics at secondary school to a more formal approach to the subject in STEM education, while favouring software support for this transition by exploiting the power of theorem-proving technologies. The volume editors hope that this collection of papers will further promote the development of theorem-proving based software, and that it will collaborate on improving mutual understanding between computer scientists, mathematicians and stakeholders in education.
Abstract:Mathematical proof is undoubtedly the cornerstone of mathematics. The emergence, in the last years, of computing and reasoning tools, in particular automated geometry theorem provers, has enriched our experience with mathematics immensely. To avoid disparate efforts,the Open Geometry Prover Community Project aims at the integration of the different efforts for the development of geometry automated theorem provers, under a common "umbrella". In this article the necessary steps to such integration are specified and the current implementation of some of those steps is described.
Abstract:The 9th International Workshop on Theorem-Proving Components for Educational Software (ThEdu'20) was scheduled to happen on June 29 as a satellite of the IJCAR-FSCD 2020 joint meeting, in Paris. The COVID-19 pandemic came by surprise, though, and the main conference was virtualised. Fearing that an online meeting would not allow our community to fully reproduce the usual face-to-face networking opportunities of the ThEdu initiative, the Steering Committee of ThEdu decided to cancel our workshop. Given that many of us had already planned and worked for that moment, we decided that ThEdu'20 could still live in the form of an EPTCS volume. The EPTCS concurred with us, recognising this very singular situation, and accepted our proposal of organising a special issue with papers submitted to ThEdu'20. An open call for papers was then issued, and attracted five submissions, all of which have been accepted by our reviewers, who produced three careful reports on each of the contributions. The resulting revised papers are collected in the present volume. We, the volume editors, hope that this collection of papers will help further promoting the development of theorem-proving-based software, and that it will collaborate to improve the mutual understanding between computer mathematicians and stakeholders in education. With some luck, we would actually expect that the very special circumstances set up by the worst sanitary crisis in a century will happen to reinforce the need for the application of certified components and of verification methods for the production of educational software that would be available even when the traditional on-site learning experiences turn out not to be recommendable.
Abstract:The geometry automated theorem proving area distinguishes itself by a large number of specific methods and implementations, different approaches (synthetic, algebraic, semi-synthetic) and different goals and applications (from research in the area of artificial intelligence to applications in education). Apart from the usual measures of efficiency (e.g. CPU time), the possibility of visual and/or readable proofs is also an expected output against which the geometry automated theorem provers (GATP) should be measured. The implementation of a competition between GATP would allow to create a test bench for GATP developers to improve the existing ones and to propose new ones. It would also allow to establish a ranking for GATP that could be used by "clients" (e.g. developers of educational e-learning systems) to choose the best implementation for a given intended use.