QED manifesto

The QED manifesto was a proposal for a computer-based database of all mathematical knowledge, strictly formalized and with all proofs having been checked automatically. (Q.E.D. means quod erat demonstrandum in Latin, meaning "which had to be demonstrated.") The idea for the project arose in 1993, mainly under the impetus of Robert Boyer. The goals of the project, tentatively named QED project or project QED, were outlined in the QED manifesto, a document first published in 1994, with input from several researchers. Explicit authorship was deliberately avoided. A dedicated mailing list was created, and two scientific conferences on QED took place, the first one in 1994 at Argonne National Laboratories and the second in 1995 in Warsaw organized by the Mizar group.

The project seems to have died in 1996, never having produced more than discussions and plans. In a 2007 paper, Freek Wiedijk identifies two reasons for the failure of the project. In order of importance:

Nonetheless, QED-style projects are regularly proposed, and the Mizar library has successfully formalized a large portion of undergraduate mathematics. As of 2007^[update] it is the largest such library. Another such project is Metamath proof database.

In 2014 the Twenty years of the QED Manifesto workshop was organized as part of the Vienna Summer of Logic.

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