January 26, 2017 Thursday
Bedtime Story
Moritz Schlick and his Vienna Circle Shape Gödel's Mind on Logic
At the University Gödel encountered some of the greatest minds
through Moritz Schlick and the Vienna Circle that was founded by him.
Moritz Schlick held the chair of Natural Philosophy in the University
of Vienna from 1922 onwards, a position that was earlier occupied by Ludwig
Boltzmann and Ernst Mach.
I have never done a complete story on Ludwig Boltzmann though he keeps
coming in and going out of my bedtime stories.
He is another outstanding product of eighteenth century Austria or
more rightly, the Austrian Empire as it was then.
Schlick had a remarkable talent to attract and gather around him
the most beautiful minds and draw out the best from them.
These scientists, mathematicians and philosophers would meet every
Thursday in the Chemistry Building of the University of Vienna discussing
philosophical questions in science.
In the years between 1925 and 1926, this group started discussing
the foundations of mathematics taking into consideration the works of Gottlob
Frege, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The two major work that they discusses in depth were:
“Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy” by Bertrand Russell
published in 1919 and
“TractatusLogico-Philosophicus” by Ludwig Wittgenstein published
in 1921.
Look what Bertrand Russell says in his book:
“…it has now become impossible to draw a line between the two
(mathematics and logic); in fact the two are one.
“They differ as boy and man: logic is the youth of mathematics and
mathematics in the manhood of logic.
“…So much of the modern mathematical work is obviously on the
borderline of logic, so much of the modern logic is symbolic and formal, that
the very close relationship of logic and mathematics has become very clear to
every instructed student.
The proof of their identity is, of course, a matter of detail:
starting with premises that would be universally admitted to belong to logic,
and arriving by deduction at results which as obviously belong to mathematics,
we find that there is no point at which a sharp line can be drawn, with logic
to the left and mathematics to the right.”
I want you to think about these words and what they mean.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
The Men Who Had A Strong Influence on Young Gödel
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the International
Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend
this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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