Abstract
One sometimes reads in a mathematical proof that a certain assumption can be made ‘without loss of generality’ (WLOG). In other words, it is claimed that considering what first appears only a special case does nevertheless suffice to prove the general result. Typically the intuitive justification for this is that one can exploit symmetry in the problem. We examine how to formalize such ‘WLOG’ arguments in a mechanical theorem prover. Geometric reasoning is particularly rich in examples and we pay special attention to this area.
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Harrison, J. (2009). Without Loss of Generality. In: Berghofer, S., Nipkow, T., Urban, C., Wenzel, M. (eds) Theorem Proving in Higher Order Logics. TPHOLs 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5674. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03359-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03359-9_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03358-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03359-9
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