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Metamathematics
Metamathematics is the study of mathematics itself using mathematical methods. This study produces metatheory, metatheories, which are Mathematical theory, mathematical theories about other mathematical theories. Emphasis on metamathematics (and perhaps the creation of the term itself) owes itself to David Hilbert's Hilbert program, attempt to secure the foundations of mathematics in the early part of the 20th century. Metamathematics provides "a rigorous mathematical technique for investigating a great variety of foundation problems for mathematics and logic" (Kleene 1952, p. 59). An important feature of metamathematics is its emphasis on differentiating between reasoning from inside a system and from outside a system. An informal illustration of this is categorizing the proposition "2+2=4" as belonging to mathematics while categorizing the proposition "'2+2=4' is valid" as belonging to metamathematics. History Metamathematical metatheorems about mathematics itself were or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard's Paradox
In logic, Richard's paradox is a semantical antinomy of set theory and natural language first described by the French mathematician Jules Richard in 1905. The paradox is ordinarily used to motivate the importance of distinguishing carefully between mathematics and metamathematics. Kurt Gödel specifically cites Richard's antinomy as a semantical analogue to his syntactical incompleteness result in the introductory section of " On Formally Undecidable Propositions in Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I". The paradox was also a motivation for the development of predicative mathematics. Description The original statement of the paradox, due to Richard (1905), is strongly related to Cantor's diagonal argument on the uncountability of the set of real numbers. The paradox begins with the observation that certain expressions of natural language define real numbers unambiguously, while other expressions of natural language do not. For example, "The real number the integer p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory Chaitin
Gregory John Chaitin ( ; born 25 June 1947) is an Argentina, Argentine-United States, American mathematician and computer scientist. Beginning in the late 1960s, Chaitin made contributions to algorithmic information theory and metamathematics, in particular a computer-theoretic result equivalent to Gödel's incompleteness theorem. He is considered to be one of the founders of what is today known as algorithmic (Solomonoff–Kolmogorov–Chaitin, Kolmogorov or program-size) Kolmogorov complexity, complexity together with Andrei Kolmogorov and Ray Solomonoff. Along with the works of e.g. Solomonoff, Kolmogorov, Per Martin-Löf, Martin-Löf, and Leonid Levin, algorithmic information theory became a foundational part of theoretical computer science, information theory, and mathematical logic. It is a common subject in several computer science curricula. Besides computer scientists, Chaitin's work draws attention of many philosophers and mathematicians to fundamental problems in mathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willard Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine ( ; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century". He was the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University from 1956 to 1978. Quine was a teacher of logic and set theory. He was famous for his position that first-order logic is the only kind worthy of the name, and developed his own system of mathematics and set theory, known as New Foundations. In the philosophy of mathematics, he and his Harvard colleague Hilary Putnam developed the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument, an argument for the reality of mathematical entities.Colyvan, Mark"Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics" The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). He was the main proponent of the view that philosophy is not conceptual analysis, but c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematics
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many areas of mathematics, which include number theory (the study of numbers), algebra (the study of formulas and related structures), geometry (the study of shapes and spaces that contain them), Mathematical analysis, analysis (the study of continuous changes), and set theory (presently used as a foundation for all mathematics). Mathematics involves the description and manipulation of mathematical object, abstract objects that consist of either abstraction (mathematics), abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicspurely abstract entities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. Mathematics uses pure reason to proof (mathematics), prove properties of objects, a ''proof'' consisting of a succession of applications of in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thoralf Skolem
Thoralf Albert Skolem (; 23 May 1887 – 23 March 1963) was a Norwegian mathematician who worked in mathematical logic and set theory. Life Although Skolem's father was a primary school teacher, most of his extended family were farmers. Skolem attended secondary school in Kristiania (later renamed Oslo), passing the university entrance examinations in 1905. He then entered Det Kongelige Frederiks Universitet to study mathematics, also taking courses in physics, chemistry, zoology and botany. In 1909, he began working as an assistant to the physicist Kristian Birkeland, known for bombarding magnetized spheres with electrons and obtaining aurora-like effects; thus Skolem's first publications were physics papers written jointly with Birkeland. In 1913, Skolem passed the state examinations with distinction, and completed a dissertation titled ''Investigations on the Algebra of Logic''. He also traveled with Birkeland to the Sudan to observe the zodiacal light. He spent the wint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foundational Crisis Of Mathematics
Foundations of mathematics are the logical and mathematical framework that allows the development of mathematics without generating self-contradictory theories, and to have reliable concepts of theorems, proofs, algorithms, etc. in particular. This may also include the philosophical study of the relation of this framework with reality. The term "foundations of mathematics" was not coined before the end of the 19th century, although foundations were first established by the ancient Greek philosophers under the name of Aristotle's logic and systematically applied in Euclid's ''Elements''. A mathematical assertion is considered as truth only if it is a theorem that is proved from true premises by means of a sequence of syllogisms ( inference rules), the premises being either already proved theorems or self-evident assertions called axioms or postulates. These foundations were tacitly assumed to be definitive until the introduction of infinitesimal calculus by Isaac Newt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proof Theory
Proof theory is a major branchAccording to , proof theory is one of four domains mathematical logic, together with model theory, axiomatic set theory, and recursion theory. consists of four corresponding parts, with part D being about "Proof Theory and Constructive Mathematics". of mathematical logic and theoretical computer science within which proofs are treated as formal mathematical objects, facilitating their analysis by mathematical techniques. Proofs are typically presented as inductively defined data structures such as lists, boxed lists, or trees, which are constructed according to the axioms and rules of inference of a given logical system. Consequently, proof theory is syntactic in nature, in contrast to model theory, which is semantic in nature. Some of the major areas of proof theory include structural proof theory, ordinal analysis, provability logic, reverse mathematics, proof mining, automated theorem proving, and proof complexity. Much research also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foundations Of Mathematics
Foundations of mathematics are the mathematical logic, logical and mathematics, mathematical framework that allows the development of mathematics without generating consistency, self-contradictory theories, and to have reliable concepts of theorems, proof (mathematics), proofs, algorithms, etc. in particular. This may also include the philosophy of mathematics, philosophical study of the relation of this framework with reality. The term "foundations of mathematics" was not coined before the end of the 19th century, although foundations were first established by the ancient Greek philosophers under the name of Aristotle's logic and systematically applied in Euclid's Elements, Euclid's ''Elements''. A mathematical assertion is considered as truth (mathematics), truth only if it is a theorem that is proved from true premises by means of a sequence of syllogisms (inference rules), the premises being either already proved theorems or self-evident assertions called axioms or postulat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Hilbert
David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician and philosopher of mathematics and one of the most influential mathematicians of his time. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas including invariant theory, the calculus of variations, commutative algebra, algebraic number theory, the foundations of geometry, spectral theory of operators and its application to integral equations, mathematical physics, and the foundations of mathematics (particularly proof theory). He adopted and defended Georg Cantor's set theory and transfinite numbers. In 1900, he presented a collection of problems that set a course for mathematical research of the 20th century. Hilbert and his students contributed to establishing rigor and developed important tools used in modern mathematical physics. He was a cofounder of proof theory and mathematical logic. Life Early life and education Hilbert, the first of two children and only son of O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metatheory
A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory on a subject matter that is a theory in itself. Analyses or descriptions of an existing theory would be considered meta-theories. For mathematics and mathematical logic, a metatheory is a mathematical theory about another mathematical theory. Meta-theoretical investigations are part of the philosophy of science. The topic of metascience is an attempt to use scientific knowledge to improve the practice of science itself. The study of metatheory became widespread during the 20th century after its application to various topics, including scientific linguistics and its concept of metalanguage. Examples of metatheories Metascience Metascience is the use of scientific method to study science itself. Metascience is an attempt to increase the quality of scientific research while reducing wasted activity; it uses research methods to study how research is done or can be improved. It has been described as "''research on research''", "''the sci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Kleene
Stephen Cole Kleene ( ; January 5, 1909 – January 25, 1994) was an American mathematician. One of the students of Alonzo Church, Kleene, along with Rózsa Péter, Alan Turing, Emil Post, and others, is best known as a founder of the branch of mathematical logic known as recursion theory, which subsequently helped to provide the foundations of theoretical computer science. Kleene's work grounds the study of computable functions. A number of mathematical concepts are named after him: Kleene hierarchy, Kleene algebra, the Kleene star (Kleene closure), Kleene's recursion theorem and the Kleene fixed-point theorem. He also invented regular expressions in 1951 to describe McCulloch-Pitts neural networks, and made significant contributions to the foundations of mathematical intuitionism. Biography Kleene was awarded a bachelor's degree from Amherst College in 1930. He was awarded a Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1934, where his thesis, entitled ''A Theory of Po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilbert's Program
In mathematics, Hilbert's program, formulated by German mathematician David Hilbert in the early 1920s, was a proposed solution to the foundational crisis of mathematics, when early attempts to clarify the foundations of mathematics were found to suffer from paradoxes and inconsistencies. As a solution, Hilbert proposed to ground all existing theories to a finite, complete set of axioms, and provide a proof that these axioms were consistent. Hilbert proposed that the consistency of more complicated systems, such as real analysis, could be proven in terms of simpler systems. Ultimately, the consistency of all of mathematics could be reduced to basic arithmetic. Gödel's incompleteness theorems, published in 1931, showed that Hilbert's program was unattainable for key areas of mathematics. In his first theorem, Gödel showed that any consistent system with a computable set of axioms which is capable of expressing arithmetic can never be complete: it is possible to construct a stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
