Friday, 27 January 2012
-
The Paradox of Richardian Numbers
My latest Decoded Science article, "Repercussions from the Richard Paradox", explains the two paradoxes developed by French mathematician Jules Richard.
Richard's Paradox had an Advantage
"For All x, the Function of x", image by Mike DeHaan. (Sometimes you just have to make your own image)!
Although other mathematicians had created paradoxes already, Richard's Paradox had an advantage. It avoided one controversial problem about the Real numbers. So did his Richardian Number paradox. The advantage was that he avoided the question of whether "the Continuum of Real numbers is well-ordered".
(I can just imagine the response: "Well-ordered? I should think so! Those Real numbers line up in a very orderly manner". Ok, that's the end of geek humour for this post).
My article also notes some of the responses, particularly that Bertrand Russell tried to save mathematics using set theory.
I want to add a special thank-you for one of the articles I referenced: "Paradoxes and Contemporary Logic".
Promoting the Richardian Number Paradox
As always, DeHaan Services ("The Richard Paradox at Decoded Science") publicizes my article, while in my Blog of Writing, "Preview of the Richard Paradox" provides its usual writing tip.
-
recommend
- recs 0
-
email
- sent 0
- like
Post a Comment