Forever Undecided: A Puzzle Guide to Godel

by RaymondM.Smullyan (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $11.82

  A challenging puzzle collection and an instructive and entertaining introduction to Kurt Godel's famous theorems, including incompleteness and undecidability. Much of the action of the book takes place on an imaginary and magical island, the Island of Knights and Knaves, where knights always make true statements, knaves always make false statements, and every inhabitant is either a knight or a knave. Here we meet an amazing array of characters, visitors to the island, seeking to determine the natives' true identities. Among them are the census-taker McGregor; a philosopher-logician in search of his flighty bird-wife Oona; and a regiment of Reasoners. By following the Reasoners through brain-tingling exercises and adventures - including journeys into the other possible worlds of Kripke semantics - even the most illogical of us should come to understand Godel's theorems, some of their philosophical and mathematical implications and why we, like Godel himself, must remain forever undecided! The book is intended for puzzle fans of every age and ability - from the high-school whizz to the seasoned mathematician, logician or computer scientist.

• Used

  Paperback
  1988

  $3.48

  This book provides an introduction to Kurt Godel's theorems through a collection of puzzles interspersed with an account of symbolic logic. Godel's argument has been transferred from the formal domain of mathematical systems in an attempt to make its essential ideas more accessible to the general reader. The primary emphasis is on belief systems and how they are related to systems of mathematics. This leads to the subject of possible world semantics which plays a role in computer science and artificial intelligence.