Logical Dilemmas: The Life and Work of Kurt Gödel
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.37 (557 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1568810253 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 376 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-07-09 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
This authoritative biography of Kurt Goedel relates the life of this most important logician of our time to the development of the field. Goedel's seminal achievements that changed the perception and foundations of mathematics are explained in the context of his life from the turn of the century Austria to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Godel believed in an afterlife, telepathy, ESP and the possibility of time travel. From Publishers Weekly Mathematician Kurt Godel (1906-1978), familiar to readers of Douglas Hofstadter's bestseller Godel, Escher, Bach, put supreme faith in the unlimited power of rational inquiry, yet paradoxically, his famous incompleteness theorem holds that no single axiomatic system can yield all arithmetic truths. Born in the Czech city of Brno (then part of Austria-Hungary) to ethnic German parents, Godel did his best work in Vienna, where he remained apolitical despite Austria's slide into a pro-Nazi fascist police state. Providing an incisive introduction to his work in logic, mathematics and cosmology, this rigorous biography by Pennsylvania State University logician Dawson will primarily interest mathematicians, serious students and historians of science. Copyright 1996 Reed Busin
"By a Mathematician for Mathematicians" according to Timothy Haugh. Writing a biography of anyone is difficult. How can a writer, no matter how talented, really claim to understand someone well enough to give an overview of his life? When the subject is a genius like Kurt Godel, whose name is known by few and whose work is really understood by even less, the job must be even more difficult. Fortunately, people like Mr. Dawson are will to give it a shot and he succeeds fairly well.In putting together this biography, Mr. Dawson has the a. Good Biography, a bit heavy on the math This book has a kind of interesting way of doing a biography. The subject, Godel, is one of the pre-eminent mathematicians of the twentieth century. This biography, written by a mathematician spends a good bit of time on the math that Godel was doing as well as the story of his life.Chapter III, for instance is a capsule history of the development of logic to 1928. This is to give background to the mathematical world as it existed when Godel was starting his work. In p. Jason T said Excellent.. An excellent biography of Godel. Examines his personal life and mathematical work in an integrated manner. Dawson is thorough, well-researched, and shows a command of the mathematics involved. He provides the most accurate picture available of the real Godel- in contrast to the anecdotal, 'crazy-genius' stories you see elsewhere. This is not a popular account of Godel's work, so the reader will need an understanding of fundamental mathematical logic and Godel's theorem
An internationally recognized authority on the life and work of Kurt Godel, Dawson is the author of numerous articles on axiomatic set theory and the history of modern logic. attended M.I.T. John W. as a National Merit Scholar before earning a doctorate in mathematical logic from the University of Michigan. Dawson, Jr.