Category Archives: Mathematicians

Bertrand Russell, Books, Proofs, Text Books

End of the Quantifiers

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A month and a week, and I've just come to the end of the second chapter. Reasonably happy with the progress, but I could be going a bit quicker... Mind you, over just two chapters I've now created 46 pages of A4 of exercises. So there has been a LOT of material to go through. Frankly, just these first two chapters have worked wonders for my understanding of logic and what proofs are founded upon.

This second chapter mainly introduced quantifiers. The concept of "for all x" and "there exists at least one x...", but quickly branched off into more involved set theory.

The biggest issue I had towards the end of the second chapter was that on a couple of occasions, I don't think I thought carefully enough about the kind of answer the questions required. ie: in this context, whether the answer was required in logical notation, or whether it was required in set theory notation. Translating between the two is something I certainly found tricky. As such, I decided to write my own definitions of notation in the form of a list (thanks Lara Alcock!). Though the lack of lists of definitions could be considered a slight shortfall of the book, I think I benefited from constructing my own notes and definitions.

I found that towards the end of the questions (because of the more lengthy logical notation) I was concentrating more on the definitions than what the notation actually meant. Not convinced this is so good for the learning process, but at least I'm mindful of it now.

Last little question the second chapter covered was Russell's Paradox, as discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901. The fact that I'm being introduced to stuff like this in the second chapter is pretty cool. Very enjoyable!

Next up, proof technique!

Bertrand Russell, Mathematicians, Pop Books

Fermat's Last Theorem

One of the first "Popular Maths" books I decided to pick up was Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh. In the book, he expertly tells the story of Andrew Wiles and how he (practically) single-handedly solved an age-old mathematics problem. I won't go into any more detail than that because you can read a lot about the story on the web (but really don't, just buy the book).

fermatsLastTheorem

Part of what I really love about this book is that it goes into a lot of background detail, a lot of history. It builds up your understanding of why mathematics is the way it is today, and exactly why Fermat's Last Theorem was such a prestigious problem to solve.

One section that really sticks in my mind features a certain man called Bertrand Russell. Now, the more I read about modern mathematics the more his name crops up. Right at the beginning of the 20th Century, Bertrand Russell's research in logic appeared to show that mathematics was flawed. Again, I won't write down the details, I'd only end up copying Simon Singh's own words (buy the book!!!).

Although one passage did stand out in particular. Simon Singh mentioned that mathematicians obviously questioned Russell's work, and then goes on to quote Russell's response:

'But,' you might say, 'none of this shakes my belief that 2 and 2 are 4.' You are quite right, except in marginal cases - and it is only in marginal cases that you are doubtful whether a certain animal is a dog or a certain length is less than a metre. Two must be two of something, and the proposition '2 and 2 are 4' is useless unless it can be applied. Two dogs and two dogs are certainly four dogs, but cases arise in which you are doubtful whether two of them are dogs. 'Well at any rate there are four animals,' you might say. But there are microorganisms concerning which it is doubtful whether they are animals or plants. 'Well, then living organisms,' you say. But there are things of which it is doubtful whether they are living or not. You will be driven into say: 'Two entities and two entities are four entities.' When you have told me what you mean by 'entity', we will resume the argument.

A brilliant read (buy the book).