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The whole point of Lean is that you don't need to understand the entire proof to be sure that it's correct. You only need to understand the definition of the th
by timjver 1mo ago
The whole point of Lean is that you don't need to understand the entire proof to be sure that it's correct. You only need to understand the definition of the theorem being proven, and you need to trust that the relatively small core of Lean is correct.
- RandomLensman 1mo agoDoesn't Lean also have libraries? Anyway, there could also be hardware errors, I suppose.
- rowanG077 1mo agoLean does have libraries, but since they are also in lean they are subject to the same rules. It's basically a super strong type checker. If it compiles the proof is valid. Unless there is a bug in the type checker.
- gowld 1mo agoWhy should you trust that the relatively small core of Lean is correct? The core of Lean got a lot less correct when a well-meaning AI system probed Lean for corner cases (bugs) that would "prove" a false conjecture. Corner cases so arcane that no human exploit in a proof. Basically, humans are too stupid to break human-created Lean, but the AI is not.
- raincole 1mo agoI don't think Lean is as rigorous as you implied here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture#In_proofs_of_correctness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture#In_proofs_o... > In July 2026, a disproof of the Collatz conjecture was verified not only by Lean, but another formal verification system Nanoda. However, investigation quickly revealed that the proof exploited bug(s) in these verifiers.