Böcker av Wolfgang Schreiner

This book demonstrates how to formally model various mathematical domains (including algorithms operating in these domains) in a way that makes them amenable to a fully automatic analysis by computer software.The presented domains are typically investigated in discrete mathematics, logic, algebra, and computer science; they are modeled in a formal language based on first-order logic which is sufficiently rich to express the core entities in whose correctness we are interested: mathematical theorems and algorithmic specifications. This formal language is the language of RISCAL, a ¿mathematical model checker¿ by which the validity of all formulas and the correctness of all algorithms can be automatically decided. The RISCAL software is freely available; all formal contents presented in the book are given in the form of specification files by which the reader may interact with the software while studying the corresponding book material.

This book describes some basic principles that allow developers of computer programs (computer scientists, software engineers, programmers) to clearly think about the artifacts they deal with in their daily work: data types, programming languages, programs written in these languages that compute from given inputs wanted outputs, and programs that describe continuously executing systems. The core message is that clear thinking about programs can be expressed in a single universal language, the formal language of logic. Apart from its universal elegance and expressiveness, this ¿logical¿ approach to the formal modeling of and reasoning about computer programs has another advantage: due to advances in computational logic (automated theorem proving, satisfiability solving, model checking), nowadays much of this process can be supported by software. This book therefore accompanies its theoretical elaborations by practical demonstrations of various systems and tools that are based on respectively make use of the presented logical underpinnings.