Raymond Smullyan presents a bombshell puzzle so startling that it seems incredible that there could be any solution at all! But there is indeed a solution — moreover, one that requires a chain of lesser puzzles to be solved first. The reader is thus taken on a journey through a maze of subsidiary problems that has all the earmarks of an entertaining detective story.This book leads the unwary reader into deep logical waters through seductively entertaining logic puzzles. One example is Boolean algebra with such weird looking equations as 1+1=0 — a subject which today plays a vital role, not only in mathematical systems, but also in computer science and artificial intelligence.
This 'best of' collection of works by Raymond Smullyan features excerpts from his published writings, including logic puzzles, explorations of mathematical logic and paradoxes, retrograde analysis chess problems, jokes and anecdotes, and meditations on the philosophy of religion. In addition, numerous personal tributes salute this celebrated professor, author, and logic scholar who is also a magician and musician. "--
Except for this preface, this study is completely self-contained. It is intended to serve both as an introduction to Quantification Theory and as an exposition of new results and techniques in "analytic" or "cut-free" methods. We use the term "analytic" to apply to any proof procedure which obeys the subformula principle (we think of such a procedure as "analysing" the formula into its successive components). Gentzen cut-free systems are perhaps the best known example of ana lytic proof procedures. Natural deduction systems, though not usually analytic, can be made so (as we demonstrated in [3]). In this study, we emphasize the tableau point of view, since we are struck by its simplicity and mathematical elegance. Chapter I is completely introductory. We begin with preliminary material on trees (necessary for the tableau method), and then treat the basic syntactic and semantic fundamentals of propositional logic. We use the term "Boolean valuation" to mean any assignment of truth values to all formulas which satisfies the usual truth-table conditions for the logical connectives. Given an assignment of truth-values to all propositional variables, the truth-values of all other formulas under this assignment is usually defined by an inductive procedure. We indicate in Chapter I how this inductive definition can be made explicit-to this end we find useful the notion of a formation tree (which we discuss earlier).
Written by a creative master of mathematical logic, this introductory text combines stories of great philosophers, quotations, and riddles with the fundamentals of mathematical logic. Author Raymond Smullyan offers clear, incremental presentations of difficult logic concepts. He highlights each subject with inventive explanations and unique problems. Smullyan's accessible narrative provides memorable examples of concepts related to proofs, propositional logic and first-order logic, incompleteness theorems, and incompleteness proofs. Additional topics include undecidability, combinatoric logic, and recursion theory. Suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses, this book will also amuse and enlighten mathematically minded readers. Dover (2014) original publication. See every Dover book in print at www.doverpublications.com
In his new book, Raymond Smullyan, grand vizier of the logic puzzle, joins Scheherazade, a charming young woman of “fantastic logical ingenuity,” to give us 1001 hours of brain-teasing fun. Scheherazade, we find, has gotten back into hot water with the king, and is once more in danger of losing her head at down. But, thinking quickly, she tempts the king to stay her execution by posing him the most delightfully devious mathematical and logic puzzle ever invented. They keep him guessing for many more nights until the fatal hour has passed, and she keeps her head. The Riddle of Scheherazade includes several wonderful old chestnuts and many fiendishly original puzzles, 225 in all. There are logic tricks and number games, metapuzzles (puzzles about puzzles), liar/truth-teller exercises, Gödelian brian twisters, baffling paradoxes, and an excursion, under Scheherazade’s expert guidance, into an amusing new field invented by Smullyan, called “coercive” logic, in which the answer to a problem can actually change the fate of the puzzler! An absolute must for all puzzle fans—from the middle-school whiz to the sophisticated mathematician or computer scientist.
More than two hundred new and challenging logic puzzles—the simplest brainteaser to the most complex paradoxes in contemporary mathematical thinking—from our topmost puzzlemaster (“the most entertaining logician who ever lived,” Martin Gardner has called him). Our guide to the puzzles is the Sorcerer, who resides on the Island of Knights and Knaves, where knights always tell the truth and knaves always lie, and he introduces us to the amazing magic—logic—that enables to discover which inhabitants are which. Then, in a picaresque adventure in logic, he takes us to the planet Og, to the Island of Partial Silence, and to a land where metallic robots wearing strings of capital letters are noisily duplicating and dismantling themselves and others. The reader’s job is to figure out how it all works. Finally, we accompany the Sorcerer on an alluring tour of Infinity which includes George Cantor’s amazing mathematical insights. The tour (and the book) ends with Satan devising a diabolical puzzle for one of Cantor’s prize students—who outwits him! In sum: a devilish magician’s cornucopia of puzzles—a delight for every age and level of ability.
Another scintillating collection of brilliant problems and paradoxes by the most entertaining logician and set theorist who ever lived." — Martin Gardner. Inspired by the classic tale of a prisoner's dilemma, these whimsically themed challenges involve paradoxes about probability, time, and change; metapuzzles; and self-referentiality. Nineteen chapters advance in difficulty from relatively simple to highly complex.
This work is a sequel to the author's Godel's Incompleteness Theorems, though it can be read independently by anyone familiar with Godel's incompleteness theorem for Peano arithmetic. The book deals mainly with those aspects of recursion theory that have applications to the metamathematics of incompleteness, undecidability, and related topics. It is both an introduction to the theory and a presentation of new results in the field.℗¡
Is there really a God, and if so, what is God actually like? Is there an afterlife, and if so, is there such a thing as eternal punishment for unrepentant sinners, as many orthodox Christians and Muslims believe? And is it really true that our unconscious minds are connected to a higher spiritual reality, and if so, could this higher spiritual reality be the very same thing that religionists call "God"? In his latest book, Raymond M. Smullyan invites the reader to explore some beautiful and some horrible ideas related to religious and mystical thought. In Part One, Smullyan uses the writings on religion by fellow polymath Martin Gardner as the starting point for some inspired ideas about religion and belief. Part Two focuses on the doctrine of Hell and its justification, with Smullyan presenting powerful arguments on both sides of the controversy. "If God asked you to vote on the retention or abolition of Hell," he asks, "how would you vote?" Smullyan has posed this question to many believers and received some surprising answers. In the last part of his treasurable triptych, Smullyan takes up the "beautiful and inspiring" ideas of Richard Bucke and Edward Carpenter on Cosmic Consciousness. Readers will delight in Smullyan's observations on religion and in his clear-eyed presentation of many new and startling ideas about this most wonderful product of human consciousness.
The author of Forever Undecided, Raymond Smullyan continues to delight and astonish us with his gift for making available, in the thoroughly pleasurable form of puzzles, some of the most important mathematical thinking of our time.
Five Thousand B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies by Raymond Smullyan is a collection of paradoxes, dialogues, problems, and essays exploring philosophical ideas. This fascinating book will challenge your understanding of reality, truth, morality, existence, and death. Raymond Smullyan is a logician, mathematician, and philosopher and is the author of books including The Tao Is Silent, What Is the Name of This Book?, To Mock a Mockinbird and others.
An introduction to the work of the mathematical logician Kurt Godel, which guides the reader through his Theorem of Undecidability and his theories on the completeness of logic, the incompleteness of numbers and the consistency of the axiom of choice.
This book serves both as a completely self-contained introduction and as an exposition of new results in the field of recursive function theory and its application to formal systems.
These logic puzzles provide entertaining variations on Gödel's incompleteness theorems, offering ingenious challenges related to infinity, truth and provability, undecidability, and other concepts. No background in formal logic necessary.
An introduction to the work of the mathematical logician Kurt Godel, which guides the reader through his Theorem of Undecidability and his theories on the completeness of logic, the incompleteness of numbers and the consistency of the axiom of choice.
Forever Undecided is the most challenging yet of Raymond Smullyan’s puzzle collections. It is, at the same time, an introduction—ingenious, instructive, entertaining—to Gödel’s famous theorems. With all the wit and charm that have delighted readers of his previous books, Smullyan transports us once again to that magical island where knights always tell the truth and knaves always lie. Here we meet a new and amazing array of characters, visitors to the island, seeking to determine the natives’ identities. Among them: the census-taker McGregor; a philosophical-logician in search of his flighty bird-wife, Oona; and a regiment of Reasoners (timid ones, normal ones, conceited, modest, and peculiar ones) armed with the rules of propositional logic (if X is true, then so is Y). 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 come to understand Gödel’s two great theorems on incompleteness and undecidability, some of their philosophical and mathematical implications, and why we, like Gödel himself, must remain Forever Undecided!
Join Holmes and Watson as they examine interrupted games to deduce prior moves. A series of increasingly complex chess mysteries culminates in a double murder perpetrated by Professor Moriarty. The master sleuth instructs his companion (and us) in the intricacies of retrograde analysis; readers need only a knowledge of how the pieces move.
This fanciful, original collection for readers of all ages features arithmetic puzzles, logic problems related to crime detection, and logic and arithmetic puzzles involving King Arthur and his Dogs of the Round Table.
The Tao Is Silent Is Raymond Smullyan's beguiling and whimsical guide to the meaning and value of eastern philosophy to westerners. "To me," Writes Smullyan, "Taoism means a state of inner serenity combined with an intense aesthetic awareness. Neither alone is adequate; a purely passive serenity is kind of dull, and an anxiety-ridden awareness is not very appealing." This is more than a book on Chinese philosophy. It is a series of ideas inspired by Taoism that treats a wide variety of subjects about life in general. Smullyan sees the Taoist as "one who is not so much in search of something he hasn't, but who is enjoying what he has." Readers will be charmed and inspired by this witty, sophisticated, yet deeply religious author, whether he is discussing gardening, dogs, the art of napping, or computers who dream that they're human.
In this entertaining and challenging new collection of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan—author of What Is the Name of This Book? And The Lady or the Tiger?—continues to delight and astonish us with his gift for making available, in the thoroughly pleasurable form of puzzles, some of the most important mathematical thinking of our time. In the first part of the book, he transports us once again to that wonderful realm where knights, knaves, twin sisters, quadruplet brothers, gods, demons, and mortals either always tell the truth or always lie, and where truth-seekers are set a variety of fascinating problems. The section culminates in an enchanting and profound metapuzzle (a puzzle about a puzzle), in which Inspector Craig of Scotland Yard gets involved in a search of the Fountain of Youth on the Island of Knights and Knaves. In the second and larger section, we accompany the Inspector on a summer-long adventure into the field of combinatory logic (a branch of logic that plays an important role in computer science and artificial intelligence). His adventure, which includes enchanted forests, talking birds, bird sociologists, and a classic quest, provides for us along the way the pleasure of solving puzzles of increasing complexity until we reach the Master Forest and—thanks to Gödel’s famous theorem—the final revelation. To Mock a Mockingbird will delight all puzzle lovers—the curious neophytes as well as the serious students of logic, mathematics, or computer science.
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