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Harvey Friedman (born 23 September 1948)Handbook of Philosophical Logic, , p. 38 is an American

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of for ...

ian at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

. He has worked on

reverse mathematics Reverse mathematics is a program in mathematical logic that seeks to determine which axioms are required to prove theorems of mathematics. Its defining method can briefly be described as "going backwards from the theorems to the axioms", in cont ...

, a project intended to derive the axioms of mathematics from the theorems considered to be necessary. In recent years this has advanced to a study of Boolean relation theory, which attempts to justify

large cardinal In the mathematical field of set theory, a large cardinal property is a certain kind of property of transfinite cardinal numbers. Cardinals with such properties are, as the name suggests, generally very "large" (for example, bigger than the least � ...

axiom An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or f ...

s by demonstrating their necessity for deriving certain propositions considered "concrete". Friedman earned his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1967, with a dissertation on ''Subsystems of Analysis''. His advisor was

Gerald Sacks Gerald Enoch Sacks (1933 – October 4, 2019) was a logician whose most important contributions were in recursion theory. Named after him is Sacks forcing, a forcing notion based on perfect sets and the Sacks Density Theorem, which asserts that t ...

. Friedman received the

Alan T. Waterman Award The Alan T. Waterman Award, named after Alan Tower Waterman, is the United States's highest honorary award for scientists no older than 40, or no more than 10 years past receipt of their Ph.D. It is awarded on a yearly basis by the National Scien ...

in 1984. He also assumed the title of Vising Scientist at IBM. He delivered the

Tarski Lectures The Alfred Tarski Lectures are an annual distinction in mathematical logic and series of lectures held at the University of California, Berkeley. Established in tribute to Alfred Tarski on the fifth anniversary of his death, the award has been give ...

in 2007. In 1967, Friedman was listed in the ''

Guinness Book of World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' for being the world's youngest professor when he taught at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

at age 18 as an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and general ...

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

. He has also been a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and a professor of music. He officially retired in July 2012. In September 2013, he received an honorary doctorate from

Ghent University Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium. Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when the ...

. Jordana Cepelewicz (2017) profiled Friedman in ''

Nautilus The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina. It comprises six living species in t ...

'' as "The Man Who Wants to Rescue Infinity". Friedman made headlines in the Italian newspaper ''

La Repubblica ''la Repubblica'' (; the Republic) is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and led by Eugenio Scalfari, Carlo Caracciolo and Arnoldo ...

'' for his manuscrip
A Divine Consistency Proof for Mathematics
which shows in detail how, starting from the hypothesis of the existence of God (in the sense of

Gödel's ontological proof Gödel's ontological proof is a formal argument by the mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) for the existence of God. The argument is in a line of development that goes back to Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109). St. Anselm's ontological argum ...

), it can be shown that mathematics, as formalized by the usual ZFC axioms, is consistent. Friedman is the brother of mathematician

Sy Friedman Sy-David Friedman (born May 23, 1953 in Chicago) is an American and Austrian mathematician and a (retired) professor of mathematics at the University of Vienna and the former director of the Kurt Gödel Research Center for Mathematical Logic. His ...

References

External links

Harvey Friedman's homepage
at the

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Friedman, Harvey 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American logicians Set theorists Ohio State University faculty 1948 births Living people Tarski lecturers Gödel Lecturers

See also

References

Further reading

External links