Learning Lean: Part 1
Hacker News
February 15, 2026
Motivation I’ve been captivated by the recent movement to popularize mathematics formalization through the Lean theorem prover, and this year I’m diving deeper into learning it.
For those unfamiliar with this revolution, I highly recommend watching Kevin Buzzard’s talks on YouTube for an overview of why formal mathematics is generating such excitement in the mathematical community.
The immediate benefits of formalization are well-documented: it helps catch errors in proofs and reduces the need for trust between collaborators since every step is mechanically verified. However, I believe there’s another compelling advantage that’s less frequently discussed: formalization enables a better separation of concerns in mathematical writing.
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Originally published on Hacker News on 2/15/2026