Category: Uncategorized
-
Reconsidering Frege’s Conception of Number
Erich Reck and Roy Cook have edited a special issue of Philosophia Mathematica “Reconsidering Frege’s Conception of Number,” with contributions by Paddy Blanchette, Phil Ebert, Thomas Forster, Roy Cook, and Richard Heck. It is dedicated to the memory of Aldo Antonelli: Before launching into the introduction to this issue, we would first like to mention…
-
The Reason We Use Symbols
In my second logic course I start with some very basic set theory. You forget just how confusing symbols can be to students who aren’t used to them. But then you also appreciate how useful they are when you try to explain in “plain English” what they mean. Even something as simple as a proof…
-
Diversity Summer Program on Paradoxes
Maureen Eckert is organizing Summer Program for Diversity: Logic at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth from May 22-28, 2016. The program is open to undergraduates and recent graduates from underrepresented groups; there are 10 spaces and travel & lodging are provided. The topic of the program is paradoxes: Paradoxes present the ultimate challenge—contradictions. Logicians and…
-
William Craig, 1918-2016
Bill Craig died early Thursday morning at the age of 97. He was a member of Berkeley’s philosophy department since 1961, and a central figure in Berkeley’s logic community. He was warm, supportive, approachable, just really a wonderful person. Berkeley’s memorial notice is here. We were office mates of sorts for two years. I was…
-
Vote for Sigmund’s Vienna Circle Book
Karl Sigmund has a book on the Vienna Circle (to accompany the wonderful Vienna Circle exhibition this Fall for the University of Vienna’s 650th anniversary). Sie nannten sich Der Wiener Kreis:Exaktes Denken am Rand des Untergangs is an accessible introduction to the history and context of the Vienna Circle. You may not need such an…
-
Remembering Aldo Antonelli
[The following remarks were delivered today by Andy Arana at the beginning of a joint Paris-Davis workshop on the philosophy of mathematics, and are posted here with his permission and that of Curtis Franks. The photo above shows Aldo at a cook-off with Marco Panza at the last instalment of that workshop series in Davis,…
-
De Morgan on Ada Lovelace
My Dear Lady Byron I have received your note and should have answered no further than that I was very glad to find my apprehension (of being a party to doing mischief if I assisted Lady Lovelace’s studies without any caution) is unfounded in the opinion of yourself and Lord Lovelace, who must be better…
-
Ada Lovelace is 200
Ada Lovelace was born 200 years ago today. Here’s a roundup of articles: Meet Countess Ada Lovelace, The World’s First Computer Programmer (MTV) Remembering Ada Lovelace, computer-music prognosticator (Boston Globe) Die Zahlenzauberin (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, German)
-
An Undecidable Quantum Physics Problem
This is cool: In today’s Nature, Toby Cubitt, David Perez-Garcia, and Michael Wolf published a paper, “Undecidability of the spectral gap.” A short writeup is in Nature News, and an extended paper is on arXiv. It shows a problem in quantum physics–the spectral gap problem–to be undecidable by reducing the halting problem to it. In…
-
LaTeX for Print-on-Demand Books
Spent today figuring out how to get LaTeX to produce interior and cover PDFs you can use with print-on-demand/self-publishing services such as Lulu and Blurb. Wrote about it at the Open Logic Project.