Godel: A Life Of Logic, the Mind, and Mathematics: Amazon.ca: John L. Casti, Werner DePauli: Books

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From Library Journal

These authors, both respected academics, hope that "by the time the reader gets to the end of this book, he or she will know why" Kurt G del (1906-78) is one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. Unfortunately, that is highly unlikely. The complexity of the work for which G del is best knownDthe "G del Theorem" (baldly, that deductions from first principles can never be complete)Dis such that it cannot be made comprehensible in a popular treatment such as this. This is not to say that there is not much of interest hereDthere is. There are nice discussions of important contemporary issues, such as computer science, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and more, but none of it makes G del's work any more intelligible. What the reader will find here, howeverDand on this basis alone the book deserves a place in most librariesDis details of the strange life of a mathematical genius who died from self-starvation owing to paranoia that someone was trying to poison his food.DLeon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington, DC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A splendid nontechnical account of the Gödelian revolution." -- -Martin Gardner -The New Criterion

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12 Reviews

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3.5 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Biography: no -- Look at his great theorm: YES!, Oct 19 2003

By

meerkat "Captain Meerkat" (Moscow, ID USA) - See all my reviews

Ce commentaire est de: Godel: A Life of Logic (Hardcover)

I got to look at the book at a bookstore before I bought it so I knew I wasn't getting a biography. This book is a look at his theorem with comments about his life thrown in to put the work into some human context. For a thurough description of the theorem with a gentle human touch this is the book for you. Casti et al. does a great job of making tough ideas readable. If you want to know more about the theorem that turned mathematics on its head this is it. Not perfect (less talk about cake :-) ) but fun, readable, educational, A shame it is out of print.

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2.0 out of 5 stars Not the real Gödel ?, April 21 2003

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agardenchair (Germany) - See all my reviews

Ce commentaire est de: Godel: A Life Of Logic, the Mind, and Mathematics (Paperback)

Sorry, but this book was somewhat a disappointment for me. The authors for the most part keep personal life and work of Gödel separated, instead of seeing them as a unity. A biography has to be the best of both worlds in my opinion. That's what makes the work of a biographical writer a difficult task. Maybe one of the two authors did the biographical part, the other one the mathematical ? And of course, everything about Gödel is great, brillant and alltogether grand. I am missing a critical view on his lifestyle and his view on music e.g.. Appearently the author of the biographical part was so in awe of Gödel, that he didn't dare to critisize anything about Gödel. Ironic, since Gödel stands for the idea, that you are allowed and even have the obligation to question everything to get to the bottom of the truth of things.
I am still waiting for the real biography of Kurt Gödel.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Not really a biography, but very good nonetheless, Oct 23 2002

By A Customer

Ce commentaire est de: Godel: A Life Of Logic, the Mind, and Mathematics (Paperback)

I would agree with other reviewers who point out that Casti and DePauli's book really doesn't work as a biography. While there are some interesting biographical factoids, they are offered in such a disjoint manner that it is hard to see this book as a good biography of Kurt Godel.

However, as a book that gives an accessible overview of Godel's work, it is very effective. The best parts of the book deal with Godel's Theorem and Turing's Halting Problem. While there are other books out there that do a good job of making both those topics accessible to a wide audience, Casti and DePauli's treatment is worth a read because they also offer some unique insights not (easily) found elsewhere.

But the best part of this book is the second to the last chapter that gives an accessible account of Algorithmic Information Theory (aka 'Kolmogorov Complexity') ... especially Gregory Chaitin's work on the randomness of natural numbers. While Chaitin has also written some accessible works on this topic, Casti and DePauli does a great job of explaining this topic to a wider audience as well as showing the connections between AIT and Godel/Turing. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

A very interesting and insightful thing that Casti and DePauli did was to periodically re-define Godel's Theorem in terms of Turing's Halting Problem, Chaitin's work, and from other interesting angles.

The book is not without fault. Besides the rather haphazard biographical details, the chapters dealing with some of Godel's other projects (physics, mysticism, etc.) were rather poorly written. Also, Casti and DePauli did a very bad job with citations/suggestions for further reading. E.g., they often cite to other works, or suggest readers consult other sources for further details, and then do NOT provide those sources in the bibliography. There are some other examples of sloppy editing and writing that would be hard to point out to those who haven't actually read the book.

Having said all of that, the book deserves 5 stars because of the material on the incompleteness of mathematics, solvability/computability, random nature of mathematics, and some of the biographical trivia (to the extent that they are offered). My recommendation is that people buy the paperback if they are interested in AIT, mathematical logic, and theoretical computer science, and want those topics dealt with in an accessible and interesting manner without sacrificing on insights.

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4.0 out of 5 stars A very good hors d'oeuvre
Casti and DePauli's book is interesting and informative -- a very good hors d'oeuvre but not a main course. Lisez davantage

Published on April 9 2002 by Louis Joseph Abshire, Jr.

3.0 out of 5 stars Not really a biography, but not that bad either.
Although I may be biased (having just read Ray Monk's excellent biography of Wittgenstein 'The Duty of Genius'), I really don't see that this is a biography of Kurt Gödel... Lisez davantage

Published on Oct 13 2001 by cmaley@cse.unl.edu