Raymond Smullyan – författare

In this entertaining and challenging collection of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan -- author of Forever Undecided -- 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 in which Inspector Craig of Scotland Yard gets involved in a search for the Fountain of Youth on the Island of Knights and Knaves.In the second part of To Mock a Mockingbird, 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 Godel's famous theorem -- the final revelation.

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.

This book features a unique approach to the teaching of mathematical logic by putting it in the context of the puzzles and paradoxes of common language and rational thought. It serves as a bridge from the author''s puzzle books to his technical writing in the fascinating field of mathematical logic. Using the logic of lying and truth-telling, the au

This book features a unique approach to the teaching of mathematical logic by putting it in the context of the puzzles and paradoxes of common language and rational thought. It serves as a bridge from the author’s puzzle books to his technical writing in the fascinating field of mathematical logic. Using the logic of lying and truth-telling, the author introduces the readers to informal reasoning preparing them for the formal study of symbolic logic, from propositional logic to first-order logic, a subject that has many important applications to philosophy, mathematics, and computer science. The book includes a journey through the amazing labyrinths of infinity, which have stirred the imagination of mankind as much, if not more, than any other subject.

En esta extraordinaria parodia de Las mil y una noches, Raymond Smullyan te transportará a un mundo misterioso en el que Sherezade, una joven encantadora y de un ingenio lógico fantástico, está en peligro de perder su cabeza al amanecer. En la crispante penumbra del harén, Sherezade tienta al monarca a postergar su ejecución planteándole los enigmas lógicos y matemáticos más deliciosamente tortuosos que jamás se hayan inventado. Éstos les mantienen ocupados durante muchas noches y así, mientras el rey trata de adivinar la respuesta, la doncella se mantiene a salvo. El enigma de Sherezade incluye maravillosas adivinanzas antiguas y un total de 225 acertijos originales, verdaderamente diabólicos. Hay trucos lógicos y juegos con cifras, metaproblemas, ejercicios de verdad y mentira, rompecabezas intrincados a la manera de Gödel, paradojas dificilísimas, además de una excursión a un nuevo campo de la lógica inventado por Smullyan, llamado lógica coactiva, en el cual la respuesta a un problema en realidad puede modificar el destino del que lo resuelve. Cualquier lector postergará sus propósitos ante los desafíos lógicos de esta bella muchacha.

¿Puede un ser humano racional estar en una posición en la que no le es posible creer que es consistente, sin por ello perder su consistencia?Esta es la principal pregunta que subyace al compendio de ejercicios que nos presenta Smullyan. Los acertijos y las paradojas reunidos aquí están inspirados en los célebres teoremas de la incompletitud y la indecibilidad de Kurt Gödel. Gran parte de la acción del libro transcurre en una imaginaria isla poblada por caballeros y bribones: los primeros siempre formulan enunciados verdaderos, mientras que los segundos siempre formulan enunciados falsos, y cada habitante pertenece necesariamente a uno de los dos grupos. En este escenario, conocerás a una serie de excéntricos personajes que acuden a ese lugar mágico para descubrir la verdadera identidad de los nativos. ¿Cómo podrá saber el señor McGregor si le engaña algún habitante? ¡Desconfía de honestos y mentirosos a la par y acude a la lógica simbólica para ayudarle! Con esta valiosa técnica podrás, además, resolver sistemáticamente grupos enteros de acertijos del tipo caballero-bribón.

This is an exciting if not rambling account of events of Raymond Smullyan's four lives — as a mathematical logician, musician, magician, and author — together with thoughts that come to his mind as he recalls them. This book includes topics from some of Smullyan's twenty-six books, as well as many of his favorite anecdotes and jokes. It also presents some generalizations of theorems of the great logicians Gödel and Tarski, and discusses logic in general, and how he won his wife with a logic trick! Smullyan also relates some of his teaching experiences, and expresses his views on mathematical education, and how our present textbooks are primarily responsible for its decline! About his life as a pianist, Smullyan relates a good deal about his experiences with the Piano Society — a wonderful organization to which he is a staunch contributor, and how he has had such delightful relations with many of its members. Last but not least, Smullyan recounts how he has known some lovely ladies over the years.

This is an exciting if not rambling account of events of Raymond Smullyan's four lives — as a mathematical logician, musician, magician, and author — together with thoughts that come to his mind as he recalls them. This book includes topics from some of Smullyan's twenty-six books, as well as many of his favorite anecdotes and jokes. It also presents some generalizations of theorems of the great logicians Gödel and Tarski, and discusses logic in general, and how he won his wife with a logic trick! Smullyan also relates some of his teaching experiences, and expresses his views on mathematical education, and how our present textbooks are primarily responsible for its decline! About his life as a pianist, Smullyan relates a good deal about his experiences with the Piano Society — a wonderful organization to which he is a staunch contributor, and how he has had such delightful relations with many of its members. Last but not least, Smullyan recounts how he has known some lovely ladies over the years.

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.

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.

"A wealth of examples to which solutions are given permeate the text so the reader will certainly be active."The Mathematical GazetteThis is the final book written by the late great puzzle master and logician, Dr. Raymond Smullyan.This book is a sequel to my Beginner's Guide to Mathematical Logic.The previous volume deals with elements of propositional and first-order logic, contains a bit on formal systems and recursion, and concludes with chapters on Gödel's famous incompleteness theorem, along with related results.The present volume begins with a bit more on propositional and first-order logic, followed by what I would call a "fein" chapter, which simultaneously generalizes some results from recursion theory, first-order arithmetic systems, and what I dub a "decision machine." Then come five chapters on formal systems, recursion theory and metamathematical applications in a general setting. The concluding five chapters are on the beautiful subject of combinatory logic, which is not only intriguing in its own right, but has important applications to computer science. Argonne National Laboratory is especially involved in these applications, and I am proud to say that its members have found use for some of my results in combinatory logic.This book does not cover such important subjects as set theory, model theory, proof theory, and modern developments in recursion theory, but the reader, after studying this volume, will be amply prepared for the study of these more advanced topics.