Tag Archives: Malcev

On Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem

December 15, 2018 – 8:43 am

This is an appreciation of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem of 1931. I am provoked by a depreciation of the theorem.

I shall review the mathematics of the theorem, first in outline, later in more detail. The mathematics is difficult. I have trouble reproducing it at will and even just confirming what I have already written about it below (for I am adding these words a year after the original publication of this essay).

The difficulty of Gödel’s mathematics is part of the point of this essay. A person who thinks Gödel’s Theorem is unsurprising is probably a person who does not understand it.

In the “Gödel for Dummies” version of the Theorem, there are mathematical sentences that are both true and unprovable. This requires two points of clarification.

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By David Pierce | Posted in Archimedes, Categorical Thinking, Descartes, Euclid, Exposition, Hitchens, Mathematics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mathematics, Science | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (13)

Boolean Arithmetic

May 5, 2018 – 7:38 am

Mathematics can be highly abstract, even when it remains applicable to daily life. I want to show this with the mathematics behind logic puzzles, such as how to derive a conclusion using all of the following premisses:

  1. Babies are illogical.
  2. Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile.
  3. Illogical persons are despised.

The example, from Terence Tao’s blog, is attributed to Lewis Carroll. By the first and third premisses, babies are despised; by the second premiss then, babies cannot manage crocodiles.

George Boole, The Laws of Thought (1854), Open Court, 1940

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By David Pierce | Posted in Collingwood, Descartes, Exposition, G. H. Hardy, Language, Logic, Mathematics, Principles of Art | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (7)