MacGuffin
23 Mar 2005, 05:36 PM
Sorry to pimp Salon.com again, but I found the recent book review of two books on Gödel interesting:
http://salon.com/books/review/2005/03/23/goldstein/index1.html
The two books are:
Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel by Rebecca Goldstein
A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein by Palle Yourgrau
The first book seems the most interesting (and takes up most of the review) by discussing Gödel's Incompleteness theorem:
in any formal system complex enough to handle numbers, there inevitably exists at least one formula that is both true and unprovable, and that, by extension, no such formal system can prove itself to be consistent or complete.
I would talk about my favorite INTPcentral subject (and Dman's bane), but I won't.
The review also talks about how Gödel and Einstein have wrongly been embraced by the subjectivists when both were actually objectivists. It also discusses positivism, formalism, and Gödel's rejection of both.
I will now have to get the book.
The second book dicusses Gödel and Einstein and how Gödel came up with a theory about how time does not exist that the author claims Einstein accepted.
Anyway, more knowledge for the INTPs.
http://salon.com/books/review/2005/03/23/goldstein/index1.html
The two books are:
Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel by Rebecca Goldstein
A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein by Palle Yourgrau
The first book seems the most interesting (and takes up most of the review) by discussing Gödel's Incompleteness theorem:
in any formal system complex enough to handle numbers, there inevitably exists at least one formula that is both true and unprovable, and that, by extension, no such formal system can prove itself to be consistent or complete.
I would talk about my favorite INTPcentral subject (and Dman's bane), but I won't.
The review also talks about how Gödel and Einstein have wrongly been embraced by the subjectivists when both were actually objectivists. It also discusses positivism, formalism, and Gödel's rejection of both.
I will now have to get the book.
The second book dicusses Gödel and Einstein and how Gödel came up with a theory about how time does not exist that the author claims Einstein accepted.
Anyway, more knowledge for the INTPs.