Article,
Lectures on the Curry-Howard Isomorphism
(1998)
Abstract
The Curry-Howard isomorphism states an amazing correspondence between systems of formal logic as encountered in proof theory and computational calculi as found in type theory. For instance, minimal propositional logic corresponds to simply typed-calculus, first-order logic corresponds to dependent types, second-order logic corresponds to polymorphic types, etc. The isomorphism has many aspects, even at the syntactic level: formulas correspond to types, proofs correspond to terms, provability corresponds to inhabitation, proof normalization corresponds to term reduction, etc. But there is much more to the isomorphism than this. For instance, it is an old idea---due to Brouwer, Kolmogorov, and Heyting, and later formalized by Kleene's realizability interpretation---that a constructive proof of an implication is a procedure that transforms proofs of the antecedent into proofs of the succedent; the Curry-Howard isomorphism gives syntactic representations of such procedures. These notes give an introduction to parts of proof theory and related aspects of type theory relevant for the Curry-Howard isomorphism.
