Logic's Lost Genius

Logic's Lost Genius
Author: Eckart Menzler-Trott
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2016-05-05
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1470428121

Gerhard Gentzen (1909–1945) is the founder of modern structural proof theory. His lasting methods, rules, and structures resulted not only in the technical mathematical discipline called “proof theory” but also in verification programs that are essential in computer science. The appearance, clarity, and elegance of Gentzen's work on natural deduction, the sequent calculus, and ordinal proof theory continue to be impressive even today. The present book gives the first comprehensive, detailed, accurate scientific biography expounding the life and work of Gerhard Gentzen, one of our greatest logicians, until his arrest and death in Prague in 1945. Particular emphasis in the book is put on the conditions of scientific research, in this case mathematical logic, in National Socialist Germany, the ideological fight for “German logic”, and their mutual protagonists. Numerous hitherto unpublished sources, family documents, archival material, interviews, and letters, as well as Gentzen's lectures for the mathematical public, make this book an indispensable source of information on this important mathematician, his work, and his time. The volume is completed by two deep substantial essays by Jan von Plato and Craig Smoryński on Gentzen's proof theory; its relation to the ideas of Hilbert, Brouwer, Weyl, and Gödel; and its development up to the present day. Smoryński explains the Hilbert program in more than the usual slogan form and shows why consistency is important. Von Plato shows in detail the benefits of Gentzen's program. This important book is a self-contained starting point for any work on Gentzen and his logic. The book is accessible to a wide audience with different backgrounds and is suitable for general readers, researchers, students, and teachers.

Monarchs, Missionaries and African Intellectuals

Monarchs, Missionaries and African Intellectuals
Author: Bhekizizwe Peterson
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2021-08-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 177614550X

Much of the work in the field of African studies still relies on rigid distinctions of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘resistance’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘foreign’. This book moves well beyond these frameworks to probe the complex entanglements of different intellectual traditions in the South African context, by examining two case studies. The case studies constitute the core around which is woven this intriguing story of the development of black theatre in South Africa in the early years of the century. It also highlights the dialogue between African and African-American intellectuals, and the intellectual formation of the early African elite in relation to colonial authority and how each affected the other in complicated ways. The first case study centres on Mariannhill Mission in KwaZulu-Natal. Here the evangelical and pedagogical drama pioneered by the Rev Bernard Huss, is considered alongside the work of one of the mission’s most eminent alumni, the poet and scholar, B.W. Vilakazi. The second moves to Johannesburg and gives a detailed insight into the working of the Bantu Dramatic Society and the drama of H.I.E. Dhlomo in relation to the British Drama League and other white liberal cultural activities.

The Man Who Made Movies

The Man Who Made Movies
Author: Paul Spehr
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 713
Release: 2008-11-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0861969367

The story of W.K.L. Dickson—assistant to Edison, inventor, and key figure in early cinematography: “Valuable and comprehensive.” —Communication Booknotes Quarterly W.K.L. Dickson was Thomas Edison’s assistant in charge of the experimentation that led to the Kinetoscope and Kinetograph—the first commercially successful moving image machines. In 1891–1892, he established what we know today as the 35mm format. Dickson also designed the Black Maria film studio and facilities to develop and print film, and supervised production of more than one hundred films for Edison. After leaving Edison, he became a founding member of the American Mutoscope Company, which later became the American Mutoscope & Biograph, then Biograph. In 1897, he went to England to set up the European branch of the company. Over the course of his career, Dickson made between five hundred and seven hundred films, which are studied today by scholars of the early cinema. This well-illustrated book offers a window onto early film history from the perspective of Dickson’s own oeuvre.

Agony Point

Agony Point
Author: James Pycroft
Publisher:
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1861
Genre: English fiction
ISBN:

The First World War – A Marxist Analysis of the Great Slaughter

The First World War – A Marxist Analysis of the Great Slaughter
Author: Alan Woods
Publisher: Wellred Books
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2019-06-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1913026132

On 28 June 1914, two pistol shots shattered the peace of a sunny afternoon in Sarajevo. Those shots reverberated around Europe and shattered the peace of the whole world. This was the beginning of the Great Slaughter. Could it have been avoided? Alan Woods uses the method of Marxism to answer this question. He explains that, actually, whilst individuals play an important role in history, to explain events such as wars, one must look at deeper causes. As well as dealing with the origin of the war, Woods traces the conflict through its development, looking at the role of all the major actors, and their aims. He shows how in the midst of the despair of the trenches and the home front, a new consciousness was formed. He also makes the case that it was the German Revolution that brought the war to an end, and how a revolutionary wave swept across Europe. The book also looks at the Treaty of Versailles and how the victorious powers imposed the deal, not just on Germany, but the rest of Europe and the Middle East. Given the amount of nationalistic mystification from all sides about the First World War, a history of the subject from the standpoint of the world working class is essential and it is provided by this book.

Yearbook

Yearbook
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 540
Release: 1907
Genre: Swedish Americans
ISBN:

A Sea of Love

A Sea of Love
Author: Claudia Schnurmann
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 890
Release: 2018-07-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 900434425X

A Sea of Love presents 95 letters exchanged between Hamburg and Antebellum USA by the famous Berlin born scholar, encyclopedist, and knowledge broker Francis Lieber (1798-1872) and his wife, Hamburg born Mathilde in 1839-1845. Their letters offer rare insights in the privacy of marriage and family life, self perceptions, notions of surroundings, as well as mental settings of the spouses. Beyond genuine individual phenomena of their Atlantic emotions their epistles show ways and methods of international communication and networking. Their writings reflect general notions and ideas shared by well-educated citizens of an Atlantic Republic of Letters connected by culture, interests, and emotions.