Three things are presented: How Hilbert changed the original construction postulates of his geometry into existential axioms; In what sense he formalized geometry; How elementary geometry is formalized to present day's standards.

We review and contrast three ways to make up a formal Euclidean geometry which one might call constructive, in a computational sense. The starting point is the first-order geometry created by Tarski.

Three things are presented: How Hilbert changed the original construction postulates of his geometry into existential axioms; In what sense he formalized geometry; How elementary geometry is formalized to present day's standards.

Modern formal accounts of the constructive nature of elementary geometry do not aim to capture the intuitive or concrete character of geometrical construction. In line with the general abstract approach of modern axiomatics, nothing is presumed of the objects that a geometric construction produces. This study explores the possibility of a formal account of geometric construction where the basic geometric objects are understood from the outset to possess certain spatial properties. The discussion is centered around Eu , a recently developed (...) formal system of proof (presented in Mumma (Synthese 175:255–287, 2010 )) within which Euclid’s diagrammatic proofs can be represented. (shrink)

We describe a first order axiom set which yields the classical first order Euclidean geometry of Tarski when used with classical logic, and yields an intuitionistic Euclidean geometry when used with intuitionistic logic. The first order language has a single six place atomic predicate and no function symbols. The intuitionistic system has a computational interpretation in recursive function theory, that is, a realizability interpretation analogous to those given by Kleene for intuitionistic arithmetic and analysis. This interpretation shows the unprovability in (...) the intuitionistic theory of certain “nonconstructive” theorems of the classical geometry. (shrink)

In the 1920s, Heyting attempted at axiomatizing constructive geometry. Recently, von Plato used different concepts to axiomatize the geometry: he used 14 axioms to describe the axiomatization for apartness geometry. Then he added axioms A1 and A2 to his apartness geometry to get his affine geometry, then he added axioms O1, O2, O3 and O4 to the affine geometry to get orthogonality. In total, this gives 22 axioms. von Plato used four relations to describe the concept of orthogonality in O1, (...) O2 and O4. That is, all the three relations of two lines, which are convergence, unorthogonality and difference, and the relation of a point and a line. ANDP is an automated natural deduction prover developed over the years at our institute. After doing a lot of experiments using ANDP, much shorter and more intuitive axioms were found for axioms O1, O2 and O4, respectively. For example, O2 can be replaced by one of its four conjuncts. This paper shows that it is enough to use two relations on lines, which are convergence and unorthogonality, to describe the concept of orthogonality. (shrink)

In the 1920s Heyting attempted at axiomatizing constructive geometry. Recently, von Plato used different concepts to axiomatize it. He used 14 axioms to formulate constructive apartness geometry, seven of which have occurrences of negation. In this paper we show with the help of ANDP, a theorem prover based on natural deduction, that four new axioms without negation, shorter and more intuitive, can replace seven of von Plato's 14 ones. Thus we obtained a near negation-free new system consisting of 11 axioms.

Euclidean geometry, as presented by Euclid, consists of straightedge-and-compass constructions and rigorous reasoning about the results of those constructions. We show that Euclidean geometry can be developed using only intuitionistic logic. This involves finding “uniform” constructions where normally a case distinction is used. For example, in finding a perpendicular to line L through point p, one usually uses two different constructions, “erecting” a perpendicular when p is on L, and “dropping” a perpendicular when p is not on L, but in (...) constructive geometry, it must be done without a case distinction. Classically, the models of Euclidean geometry are planes over Euclidean fields. We prove a similar theorem for constructive Euclidean geometry, by showing how to define addition and multiplication without a case distinction about the sign of the arguments. With intuitionistic logic, there are two possible definitions of Euclidean fields, which turn out to correspond to different versions of the parallel postulate.We consider three versions of Euclid’s parallel postulate. The two most important are Euclid’s own formulation in his Postulate 5, which says that under certain conditions two lines meet, and Playfair’s axiom, which says there cannot be two distinct parallels to line L through the same point p. These differ in that Euclid 5 makes an existence assertion, while Playfair’s axiom does not. The third variant, which we call the strong parallel postulate, isolates the existence assertion from the geometry: it amounts to Playfair’s axiom plus the principle that two distinct lines that are not parallel do intersect. The first main result of this paper is that Euclid 5 suffices to define coordinates, addition, multiplication, and square roots geometrically.We completely settle the questions about implications between the three versions of the parallel postulate. The strong parallel postulate easily implies Euclid 5, and Euclid 5 also implies the strong parallel postulate, as a corollary of coordinatization and definability of arithmetic. We show that Playfair does not imply Euclid 5, and we also give some other independence results. Our independence proofs are given without discussing the exact choice of the other axioms of geometry; all we need is that one can interpret the geometric axioms in Euclidean field theory. The independence proofs use Kripke models of Euclidean field theories based on carefully constructed rings of real-valued functions. “Field elements” in these models are real-valued functions. (shrink)

We present a formal system, E, which provides a faithful model of the proofs in Euclid's Elements, including the use of diagrammatic reasoning.

We investigate the major mathematical theories of space from a modal standpoint: topology, affine geometry, metric geometry, and vector algebra. This allows us to see new fine-structure in spatial patterns which suggests analogies across these mathematical theories in terms of modal, temporal, and conditional logics. Throughout the modal walk through space, expressive power is analyzed in terms of language design, bisimulations, and correspondence phenomena. The result is both unification across the areas visited, and the uncovering of interesting new questions.