Book description
An accessible explanation of Kurt Goedel's groundbreaking work in mathematical logic
In 1931 Kurt Goedel published his fundamental paper, "On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems." This revolutionary paper challenged certain basic assumptions underlying much research in mathematics and logic. Goedel received public recognition of his work…
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Why read it?
2 authors picked Gödel's Proof as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Nagel’s book is the most understandable explanation I’ve found about one of the most cosmically seminal math proofs: Godel’s incompleteness theorem.
It takes the idea of recursion and self-reference to the ultimate conclusion about truth, understanding, and boundaries of existence. This may sound hootie-tootie, but think of the sequence of abstraction in math: arithmetic, algebra, calculus, etc.
Once you add in recursion (self-reference), you’ve got the most important concepts underlying true understanding and productivity in software – something never discussed in computer science, and certainly not in practical programming.
Think about the so-called Von Neumann computer architecture, which underlies all…
From David's list on teaching and inspiring the best programmers.
I attended Caltech my freshman year of college, expecting to learn the tools to help me find the answer to any question I had about the nature of reality. Before the first quarter started, I purchased a copy of Gödel’s Proof. This describes that given any logical system at least as complex as the axioms for arithmetic, there will be at least one statement that makes perfect sense that can neither be proven nor disproven from the axioms of that system. Some axioms for arithmetic, for example, are that for any two numbers a and b, a=a and a+b=b+a.…
From Don's list on science and spirituality in an evolving universe.
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These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
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