English

A Lean 4 Formalization of Scott's \emph{Continuous Lattices} (1972)

Logic in Computer Science 2026-06-29 v1 Logic

Abstract

We present a complete machine-checked formalization of Dana Scott's landmark 1972 paper \emph{Continuous Lattices} \textbf{[Sco72]}, carried out in Lean 4 against mathlib and including the March 1972 Milner correction in \textbf{[Sco72]} (pp.~135--136). Scott's paper develops a model for λ\lambda-calculus from a topological starting point. He defines \emph{injective} T0T_0-spaces -- those with a strong extension property for continuous maps -- and shows that they are exactly the \emph{continuous lattices}: complete lattices whose Scott topology is determined by the order via the way-below relation (\ll). On this foundation he studies projections, retractions, products, function spaces, and inverse limits. The capstone (Theorem 4.4) constructs an inverse limit DD_\infty of function-space approximants and proves D[DD]D_\infty \cong [D_\infty \to D_\infty], yielding a purely mathematical model for Church's untyped λ\lambda-calculus. Our development formalizes \textbf{43 numbered results} from Scott's Sections 1--4 (Propositions, Corollaries, Lemmas, and Theorems), each as a sorry-free Lean theorem, together with supporting infrastructure (step functions, the a\Uparrow a basis of Scott opens, Milner's coarser-than-Scott hypothesis, the function-space tower, and the ii_\infty/jj_\infty pair). The formalization is \textbf{classical} (uses \texttt{Classical.choice} transitively) and follows Scott's proof dependency order. Where the Lean proof required choices not visible in the original -- or where dead ends were encountered -- we record detailed notes in Section 5. All proofs check with the standard footprint [propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound]\texttt{[propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound]}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2606.30782,
  title  = {A Lean 4 Formalization of Scott's \emph{Continuous Lattices} (1972)},
  author = {Lars Warren Ericson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.30782},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

104 pages, 5 figures