[FOM] Logicomix

[Staffan Angere]

I definitely enjoyed Logicomix. I'm not sure about the target audience, but I've recommended it to all my strudents ever since i read it last summer. In my opinion, it transmits the dram, passion and intensity inherent in logic very well, even if it doesn't transmit the logic itself. I've always thought that as long as the students get interested in the subject, the question of what they actually learn is somewhat secondary.

Staffan Angere
Lund University



For FOMers who are not already aware of it, Doxiadis and Papadimitriou
came out with a book called "Logicomix" last year.  It is a slightly
fictionalized story of the development of the foundations of mathematics
from Frege through Turing, written in the form of a comic book (or a
graphic novel, as some call it).  A search of the FOM archives turned up
only a passing reference to the book by Vaughan Pratt, so I figure that
not everyone has heard of it.

I enjoyed the book although it left me wondering who the intended audience
is.  It does not, I think, give the reader much sense of what the "giants"
of f.o.m. achieved, other than pave the way for the invention of the
computer.  But it's also clearly not pitched at experts.  Still, I think
it's well worth the couple of hours it takes to breeze through the book.

Tim
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