Reasoning Heuristics for the Theorem-Proving Platform Rodin/Event-B

Abstract

Developments in formal- and mathematical logic; and computing the past couple of decades have paved the way for the automation of deductive reasoning. However, despite theoretical and technological advances in computing, the rapid growth in the search space for complex proofs where the reasoner explores the consequences of irrelevant information, remains problematic. The challenge of a combinatorial explosion of the search space can in many cases be addressed by heuristics. Consequently, in this paper we investigate the extent to which heuristics may usefully be applied in discharging complex set-theoretic proof obligations using the hybrid reasoning environment, Rodin/Event-B. On the strength of our experiments, we develop a set of heuristics to aid the theorem-proving environment in finding proofs for set-theoretic problems which could not be obtained using the default settings. A brief exposition of related work in this area is presented towards the end of the paper.