HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
metamath
set.mm
HTML2020–2026
metamath / set.mm

set.mm

Metamath source file for logic and set theory

4Distinct people
6Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
338GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Metamath source file for logic and set theory

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

For anyone interested in formal verification, there's this super slick project Metamath Zero [0] by Mario Carneiro that is working to implement a verifier that can verify…

xelxebar used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year6 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2020-05-26 19:06:15 UTC to 2026-07-30 15:04:36 UTC.

0122020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20232024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

6 sources
Correct. The good news that Elements still works otherwise, you just need to add the missing axiom. But many other "proofs" have been found to be false. The book "Metamath: A Computer Language for Mathematical Proofs" (by Norm Megill and yours truly) is available at: https://us.metamath.org/downloads/metamath.pdf - see section 1.2.2, "Trusting the Mathematician". We list just a few of the many examples of proofs that weren't. Sure, there can be bugs in programs, but there are ways to counter such bugs that give FAR more confidence than can be afforded to humans. Lean's approach is to have a small kernel, and then review the kernel. Metamath is even more serious; the Metamath approach is to have an extremely small language, and then re-implement it many times (so that a bug is unlikely to be reproduced in all implementations). The most pop
Read the rest
ular Metamath database is "set.mm", which uses classical logical logic and ZFC. Every change is verified by 5 different verifiers in 5 different programming languages originally developed by 5 different people: * metamath.exe aka Cmetamath (the original C verifier by Norman Megill) * checkmm (a C++ verifier by Eric Schmidt) * smetamath-rs (smm3) (a Rust verifier by Stefan O'Rear) * mmj2 (a Java verifier by Mel L. O'Cat and Mario Carneiro) * mmverify.py (a Python verifier by Raph Levien) For more on these verifiers, see: https://github.com/metamath/set.mm/blob/develop/verifiers.md
In New Foundations is consistent – a difficult mathematical proof proved using Lean
xelxebar·Jun 25, 2020Recommendation phrase
For anyone interested in formal verification, there's this super slick project Metamath Zero [0] by Mario Carneiro that is working to implement a verifier that can verify itself, compiled binary and all. As discussed on the project page, Lean is aimed at being ergonomic but at the price of a large (and somewhat buggy) codebase. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Metamath [1] which aims at being the minimum needed for formal verification, but at the cost of extremely pedantic (albeit interesting!) proofs. Metamath Zero, attempts to find a happier balance by designing a language which is both ergonomic for the proof-writer as well as minimal enough to allow self-verification. At the moment, the project is still pretty alpha but Mario is both extremely talented and actively developing. That said, if you are someone like me and just want
Read the rest
to dive into the math, definitely check out Metamath [1]. It's library of proofs for standard ZFC foundations, set.mm [2], is seriously impressive. I mean, you can find a proof of the fundamental theorem of calculus and trace it all the way back to axioms if you so please (see theorems ftc1 [3] and ftc2 [4])! For someone with a background in math, the set.mm [2] database is an absolute blast to rogue around in. It takes some getting used to, but I am starting to prefer set.mm over Wikipedia when applicable. Anyway, I love this stuff! [0]:https://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/html?q=metamath%20zero [1]:http://us.metamath.org/mm.html [2]:https://github.com/metamath/set.mm [3]:http://us.metamath.org/mpeuni/ftc1.html [4]:http://us.metamath.org/mpeuni/ftc2.html
In Mathematics in type theory

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.