Gödel, Escher, Bach (Masterplots II: Nonfiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
- First Published: 1979
- Type of Work: Philosophy/science
- Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science and technology
- Subjects: Language or languages, Music or musicians, Art or artists, Mathematics or mathematicians, Technology, Computers, Artificial intelligence, Research, Machinery, Numerals
Form and Content
Early in the twentieth century, Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell set about devising a mathematical system that would be consistent and complete, one that could generate every true statement about number theory without producing any false ones. The result was their monumental Principia Mathematica (1910-1913). In 1931, the twenty-five-year-old Czech mathematician Kurt Gödel undercut this massive work with a short paper demonstrating that while for practical purposes the Whitehead-Russell system achieved its goal, in fact certain true...
[The entire page is 2867 words long]
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