Mathematical theory exploration

Mathematics is characterized by its method of gaining knowledge, namely reasoning. The automation of reasoning has seen significant advances over the past decades and, thus, the expectation was that these advances would also have significant impact on the practice of doing mathematics. However, so far, this impact is small. We think that the reason for this is the fact that automated reasoning so far concentrated on the automated proof of individual theorems whereas, in the practice of mathematics, one proceeds by building up entire theories in a step-by-step process. This process of exploring mathematical theories consists of the invention of notions, the invention and proof of propositions (lemmas, theorems), the invention of problems, and the invention and verification of methods (algorithms) that solve problems.