Abstract

On September 6, 2004, using the Isabelle proof assistant, I verified the following statement: (%x. pi x * ln (real x) / (real x)) ----> 1 The system thereby confirmed that the prime number theorem is a consequence of the axioms of higher-order logic together with an axiom asserting the existence of an infinite set. All told, our number theory session, including the proof of the prime number theorem and supporting libraries, constitutes 673 pages of proof scripts, or roughly 30,000 lines. This count includes about 65 pages of elementary number theory that we had at the outset, developed by Larry Paulson and others; also about 50 pages devoted to a proof of the law of quadratic reciprocity and properties of Euler’s ϕ function, neither of which are used in the proof of the prime number theorem. The page count does not include the basic HOL library, or properties of the real numbers that we obtained from the HOL-Complex library.