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George Spencer-Brown (born April 2, 1923, Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England) is a polymath best known as the author of Laws of Form. Events 68 - Galba, Governor of Hispania, names himself legatus senatus populique Romani, breaking the line of Year 1923 ( MCMXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Grimsby (or archaically Great Grimsby) is a Seaport on the Humber Estuary in Lincolnshire, England. Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs) is a county in the east of England. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland A polymath ( Greek polymathēs, πολυμαθής "having learned much" is a person whose knowledge is not restricted to one subject area Laws of Form (hereinafter LoF) is a book by G Spencer-Brown, published in 1969 that straddles the boundary between Mathematics and of He describes himself as a "mathematician, consulting engineer, psychologist, educational consultant and practitioner, consulting psychotherapist, author, and poet. A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. An engineer is a person professionally engaged in a field of Engineering. Mental health professional A psychologist is a practitioner of Psychology, the systematic investigation of the mind including Behavior, Cognition, Psychotherapy is an Interpersonal, relational intervention used by trained psychotherapists to aid clients in problems of living A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" "[1].

Contents

Life

Spencer-Brown obtained an M. B. in 1940 from London Hospital Medical College (now part of Queen Mary, University of London). Queen Mary University of London (known as Queen Mary and Westfield College until 2000 and still officially named as such in its charter Queen Mary incorporates several After serving in the Royal Navy (1943-47), he studied at Trinity College Cambridge, earning Honours in Philosophy (1950) and Psychology (1951), and where he met Bertrand Russell. Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The city of Cambridge (ˈkeɪmbrɪdʒ is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian From 1952 to 1958, he taught philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford, earning M. Not to be confused with Christchurch, a city in New Zealand. Christ Church (Ædes Christi the temple or house of Christ and thus sometimes known as A. degrees in 1954 from both Oxford and Cambridge, and writing his 1957 book Probability and Scientific Inference.

During the 1960s, he became a disciple of the innovative Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing, frequently cited in Laws of Form. Ronald David Laing ( 7 October 1927 – 23 August 1989 was a Scottish Psychiatrist who wrote extensively on Mental illness In 1964, on Bertrand Russell's recommendation, he became a lecturer in formal mathematics at the University of London. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian The University of London is a university based primarily in London, England, UK. From 1969 onward, he was affiliated with the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge. The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the In the 1970s and 1980s, he was visiting professor at the University of Western Australia, Stanford University, and at the University of Maryland, College Park. The University of Western Australia (UWA is the oldest university in the state of Western Australia. Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University or simply Stanford, is a private Research university located in The University of Maryland College Park (often referred to as The University of Maryland UMD, UMCP or simply Maryland) is a public research

Spencer-Brown has written some novels and poems, sometimes employing the pen name James Keys.

Laws of Form

Laws of Form, at once a work of mathematics and of philosophy, emerged out of work in electronic engineering Spencer-Brown did around 1960, and from lectures on mathematical logic he later gave under the auspices of the University of London's extension program. Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Mathematical logic is a subfield of Logic and Mathematics with close connections to Computer science and Philosophical logic. First published in 1969, it has never been out of print. Spencer-Brown referred to the mathematical system of Laws of Form as the "primary algebra" and the "calculus of indications"; others have termed it "boundary algebra. In Universal algebra, a branch of pure Mathematics, an Algebraic structure is a variety or Quasivariety. " The primary algebra is essentially an elegant minimalist notation for the two-element Boolean algebra, very similar to formal systems Charles Peirce devised in work written in the 1880s and 90s (see entitative graph and existential graph), but in some cases not published until after the first edition of Laws of Form. In Mathematics and Abstract algebra, the two-element Boolean algebra is the Boolean algebra whose underlying set (or Universe or In formal logic, a formal system (also called a logical system, a logistic system, or simply a logic Formal systems in mathematics consist Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced purse) (September 10 1839 &ndash April 19 1914 was an American Logician mathematician, philosopher An entitative graph is an element of the graphical Syntax for Logic that Charles Sanders Peirce developed under the name of An existential graph is a type of Diagrammatic or visual notation for logical expressions proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, who wrote his first paper on graphical

Laws of Form has influenced, among others, Heinz von Foerster, Louis Kauffman, Niklas Luhmann, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela and William Bricken. Heinz von Foerster (Nov 13 1911 Vienna – Oct 2 2002 Pescadero California) was an Austrian American scientist combining Physics and Philosophy Louis H Kauffman ( 3 February, 1945) is an American Mathematician, topologist, and professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics Niklas Luhmann ( December 8, 1927 - November 6, 1998) was a German Sociologist, administration expert and a prominent Humberto Maturana (born September 14, 1928, in Santiago Chile) is a Chilean Biologist. Francisco Javier Varela García ( Sept 7, 1946 &ndash May 28, 2001) was a Chilean biologist, philosopher and neuroscientist Some of these authors have modified and extended the primary algebra, with interesting consequences.

Other mathematics

In a 1976 letter to the Editor of Nature, Spencer-Brown claimed a noncomputational proof of the four-color theorem. The four color theorem (also known as the four color map theorem) states that given any plane separated into regions such as a political map of the states of a country While this claim of proof has yet to be verified, Kauffman has incorporated parts of Spencer-Brown's reasoning into his own work. The preface of the 1979 edition of Laws of Form repeats the four-color theorem claim, and further claims that the generally accepted computational proof by Appel, Haken, and Koch has 'failed' (page xii). The four color theorem (also known as the four color map theorem) states that given any plane separated into regions such as a political map of the states of a country Spencer-Brown's claimed proof of the four-color theorem has yet to find any defenders. The four color theorem (also known as the four color map theorem) states that given any plane separated into regions such as a political map of the states of a country

Spencer-Brown claimed in 1998 to have a proof of Goldbach's conjecture, and in 2006 to have a proof of the Riemann hypothesis. Goldbach's conjecture is one of the oldest unsolved problems in Number theory and in all of Mathematics. The Riemann hypothesis (also called the Riemann zeta-hypothesis) first formulated by Bernhard Riemann in 1859 is one of the most famous and important unsolved Spencer-Brown has also written on number theory, especially the determination of primality. Number theory is the branch of Pure mathematics concerned with the properties of Numbers in general and Integers in particular as well as the wider classes In Mathematics, a prime number (or a prime) is a Natural number which has exactly two distinct natural number Divisors 1

Quotation

". . . to teach pride in knowledge is to put up an effective barrier against any advance upon what is already known, since it makes one ashamed to look beyond the bounds imposed by one's own ignorance. " Laws of Form, Appendix 1.

See also

Selected publications

External links

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