Compositions of regular matroids, Lean and Mizar

martin.dvorak _AT_ matfyz.cz <[email protected]> Mon, 14 Jul 2025 20:36:47 +0200 (CEST)
Newsgroups gmane.comp.mathematics.mizar
Message-ID <AWc.MQCd.68c}q8{8P9S.1eTKu}@seznam.cz>
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Dear Mizar users,




I am reaching out to you on behalf of the Seymour team (Martin Dvorak, 
Tristan Figueroa-Reid, Rida Hamadani, Byung-Hak Hwang, Evgenia Karunus, =

Vladimir Kolmogorov, Alex Meiburg, Peter Nelson, Mark Sandey, Ivan Sergeev=
).




https://github.com/Ivan-Sergeyev/seymour




We have finished a formally verified proof of the easy direction 
(composition direction) of the Seymour's theorem about regular matroids in=
 
Lean 4. We are going to submit a paper about the formalization to CPP 2026=
.




During the development, we repeatedly noticed that working in type theory =

was sometimes really cumbersome. As a result, I started to wonder if it =

would be easier to develop our project in a proof assistant based on set =

theory, such as Mizar. Let me illustrate one of the difficulties... When =

proving that "if two standard representations of the same matroid have the=
 
same base, then the standard representation matrices have the same support=
",
we had a specific element of type `=CE=B1` (the ambient type of all sets w=
e work 
with) which we sometimes needed to cast as an element of the ground set `E=
` 
=3D the set of columns `Y` of the matrix that defines the given matroid an=
d 
sometimes as an element of an independent set `I` and other times as an =

element of a support of a certain finitely-supported function. I was 
wondering whether it was "too much of an overhead" from using type theory.=





Please let me know if you have any insight about whether these problems =

would disappear in Mizar and whether other problems specific to Mizar woul=
d 
be likely to arise. While we are not looking for re=C3=AFmplementation of =
the 
entire project in Mizar, some other form of collaboration on our upcoming =

paper (or a different future project) is possible.




Best regards,


-- 
Martin Dvorak (he/him)
+436704091492

https://madvorak.github.io/





All dates are written in the international (ISO 8601) format YYYY-MM-DD.=


All times are written in the Central European Summer Time (Vienna, Prague,=
 
Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome, =E2=80=A6).


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<html><body><div><span style=3D"background-color:transparent">Dear Mizar u=
sers,</span></div><div><br></div><div>I am reaching out to you on behalf o=
f the Seymour team (Martin Dvorak, Tristan Figueroa-Reid, Rida Hamadani, B=
yung-Hak Hwang, Evgenia Karunus, Vladimir Kolmogorov, Alex Meiburg, Peter =
Nelson, Mark Sandey, Ivan Sergeev).</div><div><span style=3D"background-co=
lor:transparent"><br></span></div><div><span style=3D"background-color:tra=
nsparent">https://github.com/Ivan-Sergeyev/seymour</span></div><div><span =
style=3D"background-color:transparent"><br></span></div><div><span style=
=3D"background-color:transparent">We have finished a formally verified pro=
of of the easy direction (composition direction) of the Seymour's theorem =
about regular matroids in Lean 4. We are going to submit a paper about the=
 formalization to CPP 2026.</span></div><div><br></div><div>During the dev=
elopment, we repeatedly noticed that working in type theory was sometimes =
really cumbersome. As a result, I started to wonder if it would be easier =
to develop our project in a proof assistant based on set theory, such as M=
izar. Let me illustrate one of the difficulties... When proving that "if t=
wo standard representations of the same matroid have the same base, then t=
he standard representation matrices have the same support", we had a speci=
fic element of type `=CE=B1` (the ambient type of all sets we work with) w=
hich we sometimes needed to cast as an element of the ground set `E` =3D t=
he set of columns `Y` of the matrix that defines the given matroid and som=
etimes as an element of an independent set `I` and other times as an eleme=
nt of a support of a certain finitely-supported function. I was wondering =
whether it was "too much of an overhead" from using type theory.</div><div=
><br></div><div>Please let me know if you have any insight about whether t=
hese problems would disappear in Mizar and whether other problems specific=
 to Mizar would be likely to arise. While we are not looking for re=C3=AFm=
plementation of the entire project in Mizar, some other form of collaborat=
ion on our upcoming paper (or a different future project) is possible.</di=
v><div><br></div><div>Best regards,<br></div><br>-- <br>Martin Dvorak (he/=
him)<div>+436704091492</div><div>https://madvorak.github.io/<br></div><div=
><br></div><div>All dates are written in the international (ISO 8601) form=
at YYYY-MM-DD.</div><div>All times are written in the Central European Sum=
mer Time (Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome, =E2=80=A6).=
</div><br></body></html>
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