Although automated reasoning is considered a sub-field of artificial intelligence, it also has connections with theoretical computer science and philosophy.
An important part of the uncertainty field is that of argumentation, where further constraints of minimality and consistency are applied on top of the more standard automated deduction.
[4] Others say that it began before that with the 1955 Logic Theorist program of Newell, Shaw and Simon, or with Martin Davis’ 1954 implementation of Presburger's decision procedure (which proved that the sum of two even numbers is even).
[5] Automated reasoning, although a significant and popular area of research, went through an "AI winter" in the eighties and early nineties.
For example, in 2005, Microsoft started using verification technology in many of their internal projects and is planning to include a logical specification and checking language in their 2012 version of Visual C.[4] Principia Mathematica was a milestone work in formal logic written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.
Oftentimes, however, theorem provers require some human guidance to be effective and so more generally qualify as proof assistants.