Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

"One big reason that mathematics is much more like language than programming, is that doing mathematics involves resolving ambiguities. In programming you have a compiler/interpreter that just dictates how an ambiguity resolves. But in mathematics, as in real language, you have to resolve them yourself based on context."

Along this line, I recently noticed how similar legal contracts to programming. One partner contract I had to read over looked very much like a huge if/elseif statement, and the definitions section looked a lot like setting up variables.

After reading this article it seems the similarities between legaleze and math proofs are pretty strong as well. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to process legal documents or laws with mathematical formulas to try finding loopholes.



I remember reading "The British Nationality Act as a logic program" (http://www.researchgate.net/publication/234805335_The_Britis...) in CACM a long time ago; the "cited in" list seems to be a good place to look for subsequent efforts.


Loopholes is when you find something unforeseen by the law. I vaguely remember the opposite problem - having different laws stating different things about the same situation.

This might be a problem by laws. As for math, there is inconsistency robustness topic of research.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: