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Raymond Merrill Smullyan

Born 1919 (age 88–89)
Far Rockaway, New York
Occupation mathematician, logician, philosopher, and magician
Nationality American
Influences

Raymond Merrill Smullyan (born 1919) is an American mathematician, logician, philosopher, and magician. Year 1919 ( MCMXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Far Rockaway is one of the four neighborhoods on the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Nationality is a relationship between a Person and their State of Origin, Culture, association Affiliation and/or Loyalty Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (ˈdɒdsən (27 January 1832 &ndash 14 January 1898 better known by the Pen name Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ was an English Year 1919 ( MCMXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language

Born in Far Rockaway, New York, his first career (like Persi Diaconis a generation later) was stage magic. Far Rockaway is one of the four neighborhoods on the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous Persi Warren Diaconis (born January 31, 1945) is an American Mathematician and former professional magician He then obtained a BSc from Chicago in 1955 and a Ph. D. from Princeton in 1959. He is one of many outstanding logicians to have studied under Alonzo Church. Alonzo Church ( June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American Mathematician and logician

Contents

Life

While a Ph. D. student, Smullyan published a paper in the 1957 Journal of Symbolic Logic showing that Gödelian incompleteness held for formal systems considerably more elementary than that of Gödel's 1931 landmark paper. In formal logic, a formal system (also called a logical system, a logistic system, or simply a logic Formal systems in mathematics consist The contemporary understanding of Gödel's theorem dates from this paper. In Mathematical logic, Gödel's incompleteness theorems, proved by Kurt Gödel in 1931 are two Theorems stating inherent limitations of all but the most Smullyan later made a compelling case that much of the fascination with Gödel's theorem should be directed at Tarski's theorem, which is much easier to prove and equally disturbing philosophically. Tarski's undefinability theorem, stated and proved by Alfred Tarski in 1936 is an important limitative result in Mathematical logic, the Foundations of mathematics The culmination of Smullyan's lifelong reflection on the classic limitative theorems of mathematical logic is his quite readable:

Smullyan is the author of many books on recreational mathematics, recreational logic, etc. Recreational mathematics is an umbrella term referring to Mathematical puzzles and Mathematical games. Most notably, one is titled What Is the Name of This Book?.

Many of his logic problems are extensions of classic puzzles. Knights and Knaves involves knights (who always tell the truth) and knaves (who always lie). Knights and Knaves is a type of Logic puzzle devised by Raymond Smullyan. This is based on a story of two doors and two guards, one who lies and one who doesn't. One door leads to heaven and one to hell, and the puzzle is to find out which door leads to heaven by asking one of the guards a question. One way to do this is to ask "Which door would the other guard say leads to hell?". This idea was famously used in the 1986 film Labyrinth. Labyrinth is a 1986 Fantasy film directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas, and designed by Brian Froud.

In more complex puzzles, he introduces characters who may lie or tell the truth (referred to as "normals"), and furthermore instead of answering "yes" or "no", use words which mean "yes" or "no", but the reader does not know which word means which. The puzzle known as "the hardest logic puzzle ever" is based on these characters and themes. The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever is a title coined by George Boolos in La Repubblica 1992 under the title L'indovinello più difficile del In his Transylvania puzzles, half of the inhabitants are insane, and believe only false things, whereas the other half are sane and believe only true things. In addition, humans always tell the truth, and vampires always lie. Vampires are mythological or folkloric revenants who subsist by feeding on the blood of the living For example, an insane vampire will believe a false thing (2 + 2 is not 4) but will then lie about it, and say that it is. A sane vampire knows 2 + 2 is 4, but will lie and say it isn't. And mutatis mutandis for humans. Mutatis mutandis, Latin literal meaning "with those things having been changed which need to be changed" or more simply "the necessary changes having Thus everything said by a sane human or an insane vampire is true, while everything said by an insane human or a sane vampire is false.

His book Forever Undecided popularizes Gödel's incompleteness theorems by phrasing them in terms of reasoners and their beliefs, rather than formal systems and what can be proved in them. Kurt Gödel (kʊɐ̯t ˈgøːdl̩ (April 28 1906 – January 14 1978 was an Austrian American Logician, Mathematician and Philosopher In Mathematical logic, Gödel's incompleteness theorems, proved by Kurt Gödel in 1931 are two Theorems stating inherent limitations of all but the most For example, if a native of a knight/knave island says to a sufficiently self-aware reasoner "You will never believe that I am a knight", the reasoner cannot believe either that the native is a knight or that he is a knave without becoming inconsistent (i. e. holding two contradictory beliefs). The equivalent theorem is that for any formal system S, there exists a mathematical statement which can be interpreted as "This statement is not provable in formal system S". If the system S is consistent, neither the statement nor its opposite will be provable in it.

Inspector Craig is a frequent character in Smullyan's "puzzle-novellas. " He is generally called into a scene of a crime, which has a solution that is mathematical in nature. Then, through a series of increasingly harder challenges, he (and the reader) begin to understand the principles in question. Finally the novella culminates in Inspector Craig (and the reader) solving the crime, utilizing the mathematical and logical principles learned. Inspector Craig generally does not learn the formal theory in question, and Smullyan usually reserves a few chapters after the Inspector Craig adventure to illuminate the analogy for the reader.

His book To Mock a Mockingbird (1985) is a recreational introduction to the subject of combinatory logic. To Mock a Mockingbird and Other Logic Puzzles Including an Amazing Adventure in Combinatory Logic (1985 ISBN 0-19-280142-2 is a book by the Mathematician and Combinatory logic is a notation introduced by Moses Schönfinkel and Haskell Curry to eliminate the need for Variables in Mathematical logic

Apart from writing about and teaching logic, Smullyan has recently released a recording of his favourite classical piano pieces by composers such as Bach, Scarlatti, and Schubert. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise" Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti (October 26 1685 – July 23 1757 was a Neapolitan Composer who spent much of his life in Spain and Portugal. Some recordings are available on the Piano Society website, along with the video "Rambles, Reflections, Music and Readings". He has also written an autobiography titled Some Interesting Memories: A Paradoxical Life (ISBN 1-888710-10-1). An autobiography, from the Greek αὐτός autos "self" βίος bios "life" and γράφειν graphein "to write"

In 2001, documentary filmmaker Tao Ruspoli made a film about Raymond Smullyan called This Film Needs No Title. Tao Ruspoli (born November 7 1975 is an Italian-American Filmmaker, Photographer, and Musician.

Selected publications

Popular

Academic

Quotations

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External references

External links


Persondata
NAME Smullyan, Raymond Merrill
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American mathematician, logician, philosopher, and magician
DATE OF BIRTH 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Far Rockaway, NY
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Year 1919 ( MCMXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Far Rockaway is one of the four neighborhoods on the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous
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