Yesterday's mail contained my copy of Logicomix: An Epic Search For Truth, a graphic novel by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou with art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna. It is scheduled to be released in the US on September 29, but amazon.ca apparently already had it. The UK edition is now sold out … Continue reading Logicomix: An Epic Search For Truth

Here's an interesting new-ish paper on the issue of gender differences in mathematics aptitude:Janet S. Hyde, and Janet E. Mertz. Gender, culture, and mathematics performance. PNAS vol. 106, no. 22, (June 2, 2009). Abstract: Using contemporary data from the U.S. and other nations, we address 3 questions: Do gender differences in mathematics performance exist in … Continue reading Gender, Culture, and Mathematics Performance

Volker Peckhaus has a new entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia on the influence of Leibniz on the development of logic in the 19th century.

I got Herbert Feigl's Theorie und Erfahrung in der Physik from the library, and on the front flyleaf there's a handwritten dedication to Karl Menger that reads "Herrn Professor Menger ergebenst überreicht vom Verf., 13. VI. 1929."

Wow. Four students (Sean Geggie, Martin Have, Anders Nissen, Mikkel Vester) at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, constructed a Turing Machine tape read/write assembly in LEGO. This was a final project for the course Embedded Systems - Embodied Agents, taught by Ole Caprani of the LEGO Lab at Aarhus. On their blog Lego of Doom, … Continue reading Turing Machine Robot in LEGO

The new journal of the Association for Symbolic Logic, the Review of Symbolic Logic, started up in 2008. Two of the papers in that first volume were selected for the Philosopher's Annual, vol 28, which each year "attempts to select the ten best papers in philosophy published in each year". They are: Thomas Forster, The … Continue reading Review of Symbolic Logic Published Two of Ten Best Papers of 2008

In response to the petitions mentioned recently, the UK government has issued an apology. The statement in full, as published on the 10 Downing St website: 2009 has been a year of deep reflection - a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A … Continue reading Gordon Brown Apologizes to Alan Turing

Next week it's back to the classroom for me, and I'm teaching intro logic again. I've been thinking a bit about what to do on the first day, especially in the "why you should take this course" department. There's the obvious reason: it's required (at least for philosophy and CS majors). So I'm really talking … Continue reading Why Study Formal Logic?

Exciting new entry in the SEP on Hermann Weyl, by John Bell.

David Johnston, of the University of Victoria Philosophy Department, has just released three apps for the iPhone (and iPod Touch), which will be of interest to students (and teachers) of introductory logic courses: Logic 100 These utilities for truth-functional logic allow you to check syntax, construct truth tables, and test for consistency and validity. Notation … Continue reading Logic on Your iPhone

As you probably know, logic pioneer Alan Turing invented the Turing machine model of computation, proved the undecidability of the halting problem and (independently of Church) the undecidability of the decision problem, and played an important role in the work at Blechley Park that broke various German ciphers during World War II. He was also … Continue reading Apology for Alan Turing

I had to look up a Russell quote the other day, and that's when I noticed that many of his books -- including the Foundations of Geometry, Our Knowledge of the External World, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, Analysis of Mind, Principles of Mathematics, Mysticism and Logic, and Principia Mathematica (annoyingly, only vol. II) -- are … Continue reading Books by Russell (and others) in Google Books

Here's another article in the "you might not have thought it but philosophy undergrads are actually doing well in careers in business and law" mold, from a Canadian perspective.Philosophy’s makeover: Why job prospects for philosophy grads are brightening, by Daniel Drolet

Ah, if it only were that simple:

A long time ago I posted on Richard Statman's dissertation work on the geometrical complexity of proofs: take a proof in natural deduction, interpret the formulas in it as nodes of a graph with edges going from premise to conclusion of an inference and from assumption to the (conclusion of the) inference where it is … Continue reading Carbone on the Genus of Proofs

The BBC 4 radio program "In Our Time," presented by Melvyn Bragg, has archives of previous features on a range of topics, including some relevant to logic. Haven't had the time to listen to them, but it you do, let me know what you think. Might be the kind of thing you can tell your … Continue reading Logic (and Other Fun Stuff) on BBC Radio 4

Exciting developments! The Association of Symbolic Logic has made the now-out of print volumes in the Lecture Notes in Logic (vols. 1-12) and Perspectives in Mathematical Logic (vols. 1-12) open-access through Project Euclid. This includes classics like Shoenfield's Recursion Theory, Lindström's Aspects of Incompleteness in the LNL,Sacks' Higher Recursion Theory, Hájek and Pudlák's Metamathematics of … Continue reading New Open Access Logic Books from the ASL

Catarina Dutilh Novaes' list of women in philosophical logic and philosophy of logic (see this earlier post) is now online. Updates over there, please!

For your amusement: a list of all countries with at least 5 members of the Association for Symbolic Logic, rank-ordered by number of logicians per 10,000,000 inhabitants. Bonus info: percentage of women logicians in these countries. Country # ASL members % Women per 10,000,000 New Zealand 17 0% 39.5 Switzerland 25 4% 32.5 Israel 22 … Continue reading Most Logical Countries in the World

Catarina Dutilh Novaes sent the following important message to PHILOS-L last weekend, reposted here with her permission: Dear all,Recently (and admittedly very late!), I started thinking more seriously about the lack of gender balance in the areas in which I do most of my research, namely history and philosophy of logic and philosophical logic. What … Continue reading Women in Philosophy of Logic and Philosophical Logic