ABSTRACT Since the middle of the last century was initiated the research in formal methods and was presented proposals and methodologies to apply them in software development. The idea was overcome the diagnosed software crisis through the materialization of the life cycle of this product development. In this article is presented the results of a revision of the literature, about progress and develop the requirement formalization. The conclusion is that both are slow: there is not enough interest in the industry, the academy does not train in formal methods, and there is no sponsorship for this research field, professionals fear mathematics and traditional methodologies of software engineering are still the most used in development teams. Due to the quality efficiency, software security and reliability, it is necessary to reactivate the research and experimentation with all the formal methods, because the hope is that mathematics will be the toll with which the crisis promulgated in the 60s is overcome.