On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems.

First Edition of Kurt Godel's On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems; Signed by Him

On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems.

GODEL, Kurt.

Item Number: 16066

Edinburgh and London: Olivier & Boyd, 1962.

First edition. Octavo, original cloth. Translated by B. Meltzer. Light rubbing to the spine cloth, near fine in a near fine dust jacket with a touch of wear. Signed by Kurt Godel on the front free endpaper. Exceptionally rare signed.

In 1931, a young Austrian mathematician published an epoch-making paper containing one of the most revolutionary ideas in logic since Aristotle. Kurt Giidel maintained, and offered detailed proof, that in any arithmetic system, even in elementary parts of arithmetic, there are propositions which cannot be proved or disproved within the system. It is thus uncertain that the basic axioms of arithmetic will not give rise to contradictions. The repercussions of this discovery are still being felt and debated in 20th-century mathematics. The present volume reprints the first English translation of Giidel's far-reaching work. Not only does it make the argument more intelligible, but the introduction contributed by Professor R. B. Braithwaite (Cambridge University}, an excellent work of scholarship in its own right, illuminates it by paraphrasing the major part of the argument.

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