A Query Language for Formal Mathematical Libraries

Abstract

One of the most promising applications of mathematical knowledge management is search: Even if we restrict attention to the tiny fragment of mathematics that has been formalized, the amount exceeds the comprehension of an individual human. Based on the generic representation language MMT, we introduce the mathematical query language QMT: It combines simplicity, expressivity, and scalability while avoiding a commitment to a particular logical formalism. QMT can integrate various search paradigms such as unification, semantic web, or XQuery style queries, and QMT queries can span different mathematical libraries. We have implemented QMT as a part of the MMT API. This combination provides a scalable indexing and query engine that can be readily applied to any library of mathematical knowledge. While our focus here is on libraries that are available in a content markup language, QMT naturally extends to presentation and narration markup languages.