Admission
Requirements : first year master's, with a major in mathematics, computer science or logic – or equivalent
Application file : Registration will open on May 1st, 2020.
Requirements : first year master's, with a major in mathematics, computer science or logic – or equivalent
Application file : Registration will open on May 1st, 2020.
The LMFI naturally leads to pursuing a PhD, either in mathematical logic or in (fundamental) computer science.
One term of core classes, one term of advanced classes and a research internship.
LMFI consists of:
Classes may be taught in English, if so requested by the students.
The Master's internship can take place, subject to approval by the Master's directors, either:
contact: Tamara Servi
LMFI is in partnership with Logic Groups at several European universities (Turin, Münster, Pisa, Freiburg, Florence...). With the Erasmus+ exchange programme, students and teachers from partner universities can participate in some of the LMFI activities, and students and teachers from LMFI can participate in some of the activities of partner universities. The list of all universities which have a partnership with Université Paris Diderot is available here.
Erasmus+ incoming: If you are a Master's student at one of the partner universities, you can apply for a study abroad period at LMFI (1st term, 2nd term or both). The application procedure and deadlines depend on your university (ask a logic teacher or the person responsible for international exchanges at your home university).
Erasmus+ outgoing: If you are an M1 student at Paris Diderot or an LMFI student, you can apply for a study abroad period at one of the partner universities (4 to 10 months). For more details (application procedure and deadlines, the best partner destinations to study logic, etc.), ask Tamara Servi.
Incoming: If you are a Master's student at any foreign university and you wish to do a research internship (Master's thesis) in mathematical logic or theoretical computer science at Université Paris Diderot, then you should contact Boban Velickovic and Christine Tasson.
Outgoing: If you are an LMFI student and you wish to write your Master's thesis (stage) under the supervision of a researcher at some foreign university (or under the joint supervision of a researcher in Paris and a foreign researcher), then you should contact Tamara Servi.
The first term schedule can be found here.
To obtain the LMFI degree, a 2nd year Master's degree, students must obtain 60 ECTS distributed as follows:
Ouverture classes can be chosen form the LMFI ouverture classes, or, subject to approval by the Master's directors, among the classes of others 2nd years Master's, for example in the Fundamental Mathematics master's or the MPRI (Master Parisien de recherche en informatique).
0 ECTS, semestre 1
Requirements | |
Program requirements | sans |
Teacher | Patrick Simonetta et Pierre Letouzey |
Weekly hours | 18 h CM |
4 ECTS, semestre 1
Requirements | |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | Tomás Ibarlucia |
Weekly hours | 2 h CM , 2 h TD |
4 ECTS, semestre 1
Requirements | |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | François Le Maître |
Weekly hours | 2 h CM , 2 h TD |
4 ECTS, semestre 1
Requirements | |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | Thierry Joly |
Weekly hours | 2 h CM , 2 h TD |
8 ECTS, semestre 1
Requirements | |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | Paul Rozière et Hervé Fournier |
Weekly hours | 4 h CM , 2 h TD |
4 ECTS, semestre 1
Requirements | |
Program requirements | Examen |
Teacher | Francois Metayer |
Weekly hours | 2 h CM |
The course presents the fundamental concepts of category theory, accompanied by numerous examples. The main goal is to pave the way towards the modern applications of category theory in logic, theoretical computer science and homotopy theory.
8 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | Besides the notions and results of the first semester course, a general mathematical background (at Bachelor's level) will be useful to understand some examples and applications. |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | Tamara Servi |
Weekly hours | 4 h CM |
This course is a natural continuation of the first semester Model Theory course: in the first semester course, given an L-structure M, you will identify all the L-statements which are true in M (i.e. the theory of M). Conversely, in this course, given a complete L-theory T, we will classify its models up to isomorphism.
8 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | Galois theory. Rudiments of algebraic geometry and model theory would be welcome. Reminders will be done in class if necessary. |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | Silvain Rideau |
Weekly hours | 4 h CM |
The asymptotic properties of finite fields, i.e. the properties that are true in every sufficiently large finite field, can be understood by looking at pseudo finite fields: the infinite models of set of statements that hold in every finite field. This class was defined by Ax and he gave an algebraic characterisation of it: they are exactly the perfect, pseudo- algebraically closed fields with exactly one extension of any given degree.
Pseudo finite structures have lately played an important role in the model theoretic study of certain questions in combinatorics, among others in results of Hrushovski in additive combinatorics. These results find some of their roots in the work of Chatzidakis, van den Dries and Macintyre that gave a precise description of sets definable in a pseudo-finite field by, among other things, exhibiting a pseudo-finite equivalent of of the counting measure. The goal of
The goal of this class will be to introduce the results of Ax and Chatzidakis-van den Dries-Macintyre as well as introduce the algebraic notions necessary to understand them. We will then consider questions related to geometric model theory like the study of definable groups, the imaginaries or classification questions.
8 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | Boban Velikovic |
Weekly hours | 4 h CM |
On 8 August 1900, at the Second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris, David Hilbert set out a list of 23 mathematical problems which, in his opinion, should serve as a guide for future research in the new century. The first problem in this list, Cantor's continuum hypothesis, was solved in two stages: by Gödel (1938) who constructed an internal model of the generalized continuum hypothesis, and by Paul Cohen (1963), who invented a model construction for the negation of Cantor's hypothesis. This course will mainly cover the two model constructions of set theory introduced by Gödel and Cohen.
8 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | |
Program requirements | Examen |
Teacher | Dominique Lecomte |
Weekly hours | 4 h CM |
In classical descriptive set theory, we are interested in sets appearing naturally in various topics in mathematics, in particular in functional analysis, harmonic analysis, dynamical systems and group theory. One of the goals is to study the topological complexity of these sets. For example, one can classify the Borel subsets of the real line by considering the number of steps necessary to construct them, starting from the open sets, and allowing countable unions and taking complements.
We work in Polish topological spaces, where Baire’s theorem is a powerful tool. We will first be interested in the Borel subsets of the Polish spaces, and we will see that the countable ordinals define a natural hierarchy among them. Then we will study the direct images of the Borel sets by the Borel maps (the analytic sets) and their complement (the co-analytic sets). In particular, we will provide a method allowing us to prove that some sets are co-analytic but not Borel.
We will finish this course with an introduction to effective descriptive set theory and its appli- cations. One of its very powerful tool is the Gandy-Harrington topology, and we will establish its properties allowing to use it to prove many dichotomy results. We will provide the details for at least three examples: the Hurewicz dichotomy, the Silver dichotomy and the Kechris-Solecki-Todorčević dichotomy. We will state some more recent examples, and give some details if time permits.
8 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | Christine Tasson and Alexis Saurin |
Weekly hours | 4 h CM |
Proof theory has undergone at least two major developments over the past century as a result of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. The first took place in the 1930s, immediately after the results on incompleteness, with the introduction and study of natural deduction and sequent calculus s by Gentzen and lambda-calculus by Church. Church then showed the undecidability of predicate calculus via lambda-calculus while introducing a universal computation model while Gentzen deduced the consistency of various logical systems as a corollary of cut elimination of breaks in sequent calculus.
The second stage took place in the 1960s with the gradual highlighting, through the Curry-Howard correspondence, of the profound links between proofs and programmes, from the correspondence between simply typed lambda-calculus and minimal propositional natural deduction to the various extensions of this correspondence to the second order, to classical logic and to the emergence of the notion of linearity in proof theory. Linear logic has profoundly renewed the links between the formal semantics of programming languages on one hand and proof theory on the other. Linear algebra is the third pole of this correspondence, focusing on the notion of computational resource.
The basic course covered the first step. This course will be devoted to the developments since the 1960s and will present the classical tools for the study of the Curry-Howard correspondence. After some review and additions to the basic course, the course will focus on two fundamental concepts, the second order and linearity, and their development, particularly in an algebraic context. In particular, the results of the course will be applied to the study of PCF, an idealized programming language.
8 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | Students following this class are expected to have attended the introduction to programming and to formal proofs in Coq, or equivalent background. |
Program requirements | Examen |
Teacher | Hugo Herbelin |
Weekly hours | 4 h CM |
Basic Type Theory
Homotopy Type Theory
Models
8 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | |
Program requirements | projet |
Teacher | Pierre Letouzey |
Weekly hours | 2 h CM , 2 h TP |
One half of this module will consist of course work, the other half will consist of practical work on a machine. The course will finish with a project to be carried out in Coq. The first part of this course is a prerequisite for the Homotopy Type Theory course.
8 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | It will be assumed that students know the basics of calculability (especially primitive recursion) and complexity (P, NP). |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | Arnaud Durand et Olivier Bournez |
Weekly hours | 4 h CM |
The objective of the course is to present several points of view on complexity from logic, recursion theory or analysis. The common feature of these approaches is that they move away from the notion of the machine (and its associated measures such as time and space) in favour of a more descriptive view of the calculation. The course aims in particular to study logical formalisms in terms of their power of expression and to present multiple characterizations of the usual complexity classes.
These descriptive or implicit approaches to complexity have had important applications in database theory, programming languages and more recently in the analysis of differential equation systems, or in understanding the power of alternative computational models based on bioinformatics, or analog computation.
We will first aim to present results on classical complexity [8, 13], to extend to algebraic models such as Blum Shub and Smale's model [3, 2], to continuous space such as neural network/deep learning models [17], then to time and continuous space such as Shannon's model [16].
4 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | |
Program requirements | examen |
Teacher | Vincent Danos et Ilias Garnier |
Weekly hours | 2 h CM |
The purpose of this course is to give an overview of computer science basics of blokchains (communication protocols, games) and examples of blockchain protocols used in cryptocurrencies and smart contracts.
4 ECTS, semestre 2
Requirements | |
Program requirements | CC+examen |
Teacher | Brice Halimi |
Weekly hours | 2 h CM |
The course will be devoted to this question. In particular, we will examine three main reasons for declaring logic "formal": because it uses discursive resources that can be said to be formal (schematic); because it concerns forms (whose status is to be specified: "logical constants" for Russell, "forms derived from something in general" for Husserl, to mention two important examples); and because it aims at an independent validity of any particular content (logic as universal science).
These three main reasons are not necessarily compatible. Moreover, the examination of the question raised will of course imply taking into account the history of logic, and a reflection on the situation of logic between philosophy and mathematics. This will be an opportunity to examine the issue of "absolute generality", that is, the possibility of a theory covering absolutely everything in general.
Aim of the class: knowledge of the philosophical issues of the history of logic in the 20th century.
Candidates must have a 1st year master's degree (M1), or an equivalent degree, with a major in mathematics, computer science or logic.
In order to make the application process easier for international students, the University of Paris Diderot follows the Campus France procedure. Foreign students should find all relevant information on the Campus France website. Foreign students from countries involved in the "Étude en France" procedure should register on that platform before March 2019.
Students must apply on the university website from Mai the 1st to July the 10th.
There are possibilities of scholarships for prospective M1 or M2 students, and particularly for foreigners:
The LMFI naturally leads to pursuing a PhD, either in mathematical logic or in (fundamental) computer science. Phd's in computer science can also be pursued in a compagny or a public research institute (INRIA, CEA, ONERA, etc.). In recent years, more than half of the students that obtained the LMFI Master's degree have continued with a PhD thesis.
The main career prospects after a PhD thesis are in research in a broad sense: