Constructive Algebra

Goals of the course

This course is an introduction to constructive algebra. We recall first what is Hilbert's program, and the distinction between constructive and classical reasoning. We explain how to classify the complexity of mathematical notions and proofs in mathematics using basic notions of logic. A typical example of reduction of logical complexity can be seen in the use of point-free representation of the Zariski spectrum of a commutative ring. We explain also how to make sense effectively of the algebraic closure of a field.

Courses

Course 1 Introduction to constructive algebra

Course 2 Zariski lattice and Prufer domain and Structure sheaf

Course 3 Separable algebraic closure of a perfect field

Interesting links

Besides the book by Mines, Richman and Ruitenburg, the book of Yengui on constructive commutative algebra and the book by Lombardi and Quitte below (each of them with a lot of exercises) are recommended

The home page of Henri Lombardi contains many relevant papers. See also the book about finitely generated projective modules

The home page of Harold Edwards contains interesting talks. As a typical example see this talk on Abel's Theorem. His book on constructive mathematics is recommended

The home page of Mohamed Barakat, with elegant implementations of abstract algorithms

The PhD thesis of Ingo Blechschmidt on internal language of toposes in algebraic geometry

The PhD thesis of Claire Tete (in french) on constructive homological algebra

A master thesis on using homological algebra for computation of gcd in polynomial rings

A master thesis on coherent rings

An historical introduction to Dedekind's theory of ideals

A paper on proof theory (coherent logic) and algebra

Some remarks about two notes of Stone or abstract functional analysis

A logical approach to commutative algebra

The home page of Fred Richman contains also relevant papers. In particular, see the paper on "Intuitionism as generalization".

The following paper provides a nice introduction to constructive mathematics and to type theory