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- From: St�phane Lescuyer <stephane.lescuyer AT inria.fr>
- To: staecker <cstaecker AT fairfield.edu>
- Cc: coq-club AT inria.fr
- Subject: Re: [Coq-Club] well-ordering of natural numbers
- Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:11:02 +0200
> I need to use a theorem like this:
> Lemma nat_well_ordered: forall (P:nat -> Prop),
> (exists n:nat, P n) -> (exists m:nat, P m /\
> forall k:nat, P k -> k >= m).
Consider the fact that Coq's logic is intuitionistic, and try to think
of this theorem of yours in a constructive manner. If you're given an
n for which P is true, then how are you gonna compute the smallest k
for which P is true?
Indeed, you need to be able to decide if P is true on a given m to
write such a function. This is why you need the decidability of P to
prove this theorem.
If you're not interested in constructive logic, just assume the
excluded middle and using it you can use prove your theorem by a
simple induction on n.
HTH,
Stéphane
--
I'm the kind of guy that until it happens, I won't worry about it. -
R.H. RoY05, MVP06
- [Coq-Club] well-ordering of natural numbers, staecker
- Re: [Coq-Club] well-ordering of natural numbers, Stéphane Lescuyer
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