A Framework for Interactive Sharing and Deductive Searching in Distributed Heterogeneous Collections of Formalized Mathematics

Peer-to-peer technology implemented in systems like Napster allowed sharing of digitized music across the web in an incredibly easy to use system. This paper describes a prototype peer-to-peer system for networking distributed and heterogeneous databases of formalized mathematics. We also propose a general framework for deductive search in heterogeneous libraries of formal content. As participants in this conference well know, a significant body of mathematics has been formalized in theorem provers. We believe that a truly distributed mechanism for sharing formal content will multiply efforts of individual users of theorem proving systems, will invigorate ongoing formalization efforts, and will spur new research in deductive search and content-based addressing. Interactive sharing has the potential to be a significant new methodology for theorem proving. A basic tenet of our approach is that users of the system must be able to account for results and methods for accountability are incorporated into the proposed methods.