. We show how functional languages can be used to write programs for real-valued functionals in exact real arithmetic. We concentrate on two useful functionals: definite integration, and the functional returning the maximum value of a continuous function over a closed interval. The algorithms are a practical application of a method, due to Berger, for computing quantifiers over streams. Correctness proofs for the algorithms make essential use of domain theory. 1 Introduction In exact real number computation, infinite representations of reals are employed to avoid the usual rounding errors that are inherent in floating point computation [4--6, 17]. For certain real number computations that are highly sensitive to small variations in the input, such rounding errors become inordinately large and the use of floating-point algorithms can lead to completely erroneous results [1, 14]. In such situations, exact real number computation provides guaranteed correctness, although at the (probably...

We show that the extensional ordering of the sequential functionals of pure type 3, e.g. as defined via game semantics [2, 4], is not cpo-enriched. This shows that this model does not equal Milner’s [9] fully abstract model for P CF. 1

In this paper, we will address a problem raised by Bauer, Escardó and Simpson. We define two hierarchies of total, continuous functionals over the reals based on domain theory, one based on an “extensional ” representation of the reals and the other on an “intensional ” representation. The problem is if these two hierarchies coincide. We will show that this coincidence problem is equivalent to the statement that the topology on the Kleene-Kreisel continuous functionals of a fixed type induced by all continuous functions into the reals is zero-dimensional for each type. As a tool of independent interest, we will construct topological embeddings of the Kleene-Kreisel functionals into both the extensional and the intensional hierarchy at each type. The embeddings will be hierarchy embeddings as well in the sense that they are the inclusion maps at type 0 and respect application at higher types. 1

It is a fact of experience from the study of higher type computability that a wide range of approaches to defining a class of (hereditarily) total functionals over N leads in practice to a relatively small handful of distinct type structures. Among these are the type structure C of Kleene-Kreisel continuous functionals, its effective substructure C eff, and the type structure HEO of the hereditarily effective operations. However, the proofs of the relevant equivalences are often non-trivial, and it is not immediately clear why these particular type structures should arise so ubiquitously. In this paper we present some new results which go some way towards explaining this phenomenon. Our results show that a large class of extensional collapse constructions always give rise to C, C eff or HEO (as appropriate). We obtain versions of our results for both the “standard” and “modified” extensional collapse constructions. The proofs make essential use of a technique due to Normann. Many new results, as well as some previously known ones, can be obtained as instances of our theorems, but more importantly, the proofs apply uniformly to a whole family of constructions, and provide strong evidence that the above three type structures are highly canonical mathematical objects.

The Kleene-Kreisel density theorem is one of the tools used to investigate the denotational semantics of programs involving higher types. We give a brief introduction to the classical density theorem, then show how this may be generalized to set theoretical models for algorithms accepting real numbers as inputs and finally survey some recent applications of this generalization. 1

We review some of the history of the computability theory of functionals of higher types, and we will demonstrate how contributions from logic and theoretical computer science have shaped this still active subject.