Formal system

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A formal system is broadly defined as any well-defined system of abstract thought based on the model of mathematics. The entailment of the system by its logical foundation is what distinguishes a formal system from others which may have some basis in an abstract model. Often the formal system will be the basis for or even identified with a larger theory or field (e.g. Euclidean geometry) consistent with the usage in modern mathematics such as model theory. A formal system need not be mathematical as such; for example, Spinoza's Ethics imitates the form of Euclid's Elements.

Each formal system has a formal language, which is composed by primitive symbols. These symbols act on certain rules of formation and are developed by inference from a set of axioms. The system thus consists of any number of formulas built up through finite combinations of the primitive symbols—combinations that are formed from the axioms in accordance with the stated rules.[1]

Formal systems in mathematics consist of the following elements:

  1. A finite set of symbols (i.e. the alphabet), that can be used for constructing formulas (i.e. finite strings of symbols).
  2. A grammar, which tells how well-formed formulas (abbreviated wff) are constructed out of the symbols in the alphabet. It is usually required that there be a decision procedure for deciding whether a formula is well formed or not.
  3. A set of axioms or axiom schemata: each axiom must be a wff.
  4. A set of inference rules.

A formal system is said to be recursive (i.e. effective) or recursively enumerable if the set of axioms and the set of inference rules are decidable sets or semidecidable sets, respectively.

Some theorists use the term formalism as a rough synonym for formal system, but the term is also used to refer to a particular style of notation, for example, Paul Dirac's bra–ket notation.

Related subjects

Logical system

A logical system or, for short, logic, is a formal system together with a form of semantics,[disputed – discuss] usually in the form of model-theoretic interpretation, which assigns truth values to sentences of the formal language, that is, formulae that contain no free variables. A logic is sound if all sentences that can be derived are true in the interpretation, and complete if, conversely, all true sentences can be derived.

Deductive system

A deductive system (also called a deductive apparatus of a formal system) consists of the axioms (or axiom schemata) and rules of inference that can be used to derive the theorems of the system.[2]

Such a deductive system is intended to preserve deductive qualities in the formulas that are expressed in the system. Usually the quality we are concerned with is truth as opposed to falsehood. However, other modalities, such as justification or belief may be preserved instead.

In order to sustain its deductive integrity, a deductive apparatus must be definable without reference to any intended interpretation of the language. The aim is to ensure that each line of a derivation is merely a syntactic consequence of the lines that precede it. There should be no element of any interpretation of the language that gets involved with the deductive nature of the system.

Formal proofs

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Main article: Formal proof

Formal proofs are sequences of well-formed formulas (or wff for short). For a wff to qualify as part of a proof, it might either be an axiom or be the product of applying an inference rule on previous wffs in the proof sequence. The last wff in the sequence is recognized as a theorem.

The point of view that generating formal proofs is all there is to mathematics is often called formalism. David Hilbert founded metamathematics as a discipline for discussing formal systems. Any language that one uses to talk about a formal system is called a metalanguage. The metalanguage may be a natural language, or it may be partially formalized itself, but it is generally less completely formalized than the formal language component of the formal system under examination, which is then called the object language, that is, the object of the discussion in question.

Once a formal system is given, one can define the set of theorems which can be proved inside the formal system. This set consists of all wffs for which there is a proof. Thus all axioms are considered theorems. Unlike the grammar for wffs, there is no guarantee that there will be a decision procedure for deciding whether a given wff is a theorem or not. The notion of theorem just defined should not be confused with theorems about the formal system, which, in order to avoid confusion, are usually called metatheorems.

Formal language

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Main article: Formal language

In mathematics, logic, and computer science, a formal language is a language that is defined by precise mathematical or machine processable formulas. Like languages in linguistics, formal languages generally have two aspects:

  • the syntax of a language is what the language looks like (more formally: the set of possible expressions that are valid utterances in the language)
  • the semantics of a language are what the utterances of the language mean (which is formalized in various ways, depending on the type of language in question)

A special branch of mathematics and computer science exists that is devoted exclusively to the theory of language syntax: formal language theory. In formal language theory, a language is nothing more than its syntax; questions of semantics are not included in this specialty.

Formal grammar

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Main article: Formal grammar

In computer science and linguistics a formal grammar is a precise description of a formal language: a set of strings. The two main categories of formal grammar are that of generative grammars, which are sets of rules for how strings in a language can be generated, and that of analytic grammars (or reductive grammar,[3][4] which are sets of rules for how a string can be analyzed to determine whether it is a member of the language. In short, an analytic grammar describes how to recognize when strings are members in the set, whereas a generative grammar describes how to write only those strings in the set.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica, Formal system definition, 2007.
  2. ↑ Hunter, Geoffrey, Metalogic: An Introduction to the Metatheory of Standard First-Order Logic, University of California Pres, 1971
  3. ↑ Reductive grammar: (computer science) A set of syntactic rules for the analysis of strings to determine whether the strings exist in a language. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.[unreliable source?] About the Author Compiled by The Editors of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology (New York, NY) an in-house staff who represents the cutting-edge of skill, knowledge, and innovation in science publishing. [1]
  4. ↑ "There are two classes of formal-language definition compiler-writing schemes. The productive grammar approach is the most common. A productive grammar consists primarrly of a set of rules that describe a method of generating all possible strings of the language. The reductive or analytical grammar technique states a set of rules that describe a method of analyzing any string of characters and deciding whether that string is in the language." Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Further reading

External links

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