Logic for Computable Functions (LCF) is an interactive automated theorem prover developed at the universities of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

 and Stanford

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 by Robin Milner

Robin Milner

Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner FRS FRSE was a prominent British computer scientist.-Life, education and career:...

 and others in 1972. LCF introduced the general-purpose programming language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

 ML to allow users to write theorem-proving tactics. Theorems in the system are propositions of a special "theorem" abstract datatype. The ML type system ensures that theorems are derived using only the inference rules given by the operations of the abstract type.

Successors include Higher Order Logic (HOL)

HOL theorem prover

HOL denotes a family of interactive theorem proving systems sharingsimilar logics and implementation strategies....

 and Isabelle.