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An Introduction to Martin-Lof ’s Constructive Type Theory and a computer implementation of it. ¨ Bengt Nordstrom bengt@cs.chalmers.se ChungAng University, Seoul, Korea ¨ on leave from Chalmers University, Goteborg, Sweden An Introduction to Martin-Lof’s Constructive Type Theory and a computer implementation of it. – p Background Martin-Löf developed his type theory during 1970 – 1980 as a foundational language for mathematics. It is based on Constructive Mathematics and a proposition is the set of all its proofs. The following identificatons can be made: is a proof of the proposition is an object in the type is a program with specification is a solution to the problem An Introduction to Martin-Lof’s Constructive Type Theory and a computer implementation of it. – p Basic idea Not only that a proof of is an object in the type , but also the process of proving is identified with the process of building an object in the type . An Introduction to Martin-Lof’s Constructive Type Theory and a computer implementation of it. – p To prove is to build To apply a rule c is to construct an application of the constant c. To assume A is to construct an abstraction of a variable of type A. To refer to an assumption of A is to use a variable of type A. An Introduction to Martin-Lof’s Constructive Type Theory and a computer implementation of it. – p Overview of type theory Type theory is a small typed functional language with one basic t