[FOM] Why not NF?

Martin Davis martin at eipye.com
Mon Feb 20 00:26:00 EST 2006


Hendrik wrote:

 >Martin Davis wrote:
 >> NF suffers from at least two grave faults:
 > >1. It's inconsistent with AC
 > >2. Cantor's theorem 2^x > x fails.

 >And why are those two sacred?

Sacred? Not at all. An integral part of contemporary mathematics? Yes.

NF is certainly interesting to study, and Specker's result that ~AC holds 
is neat. But these two facts make it a very odd choice as a foundation of 
mathematics.

Martin




                           Martin Davis
                    Visiting Scholar UC Berkeley
                      Professor Emeritus, NYU
                          martin at eipye.com
                          (Add 1 and get 0)
                        http://www.eipye.com



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