Image via Wikipedia
Text Version:
Although I may be biased–I love comic books, epic searches, and Truth–, Logicomix is an incredible book.
The book chronicles, in graphic novel form, the plight of the logicians, specifically Bertrand Russell, to develop a rigorous, logical foundation for mathematics. It may not be clear at first glance why this is such an epic pursuit, but if you think for a moment about mathematics, the language of the universe, if it cannot be grounded on sturdy, logical foundation, what can be?
This epic pursuit that involved some of history’s greatest minds of the last two millennia comes to a close when Kurt Godel presents his Incompleteness Theorem, which proved that this goal could not be obtained, and Jon von Neumann declares, recognizing the implications, “It’s all over!”
I’ve often talked about how knowledge is held in communities, and maintain that in order to learn an area you need to get tapped into that community surrounding that knowledge area. However, I’ve always thought about it in terms of the present, the living and breathing community that exists today, not in terms of the community that extends back into the history of the subject.
Studying a field by following the community of people in their quest to uncover the field provides context and really helps you understand the motivations, what’s important, and key turning points.
-Kevin
4.9.2011
