Product Description

Logic is sometimes called the foundation of mathematics: the logician studies the kinds of reasoning used in the individual steps of a proof. Alonzo Church was a pioneer in the field of mathematical logic, whose contributions to number theory and the theories of algorithms and computability laid the theoretical foundations of computer science. His first Princeton book, The Calculi of Lambda-Conversion (1941), established an invaluable tool that computer scientists still use today.

Even beyond the accomplishment of that book, however, his second Princeton book, Introduction to Mathematical Logic, defined its subject for a generation. Originally published in Princeton's Annals of Mathematics Studies series, this book was revised in 1956 and reprinted a third time, in 1996, in the Princeton Landmarks in Mathematics series. Although new results in mathematical logic have been developed and other textbooks have been published, it remains, sixty years later, a basic source for understanding formal logic.

Church was one of the principal founders of the Association for Symbolic Logic; he founded the Journal of Symbolic Logic in 1936 and remained an editor until 1979 At his death in 1995, Church was still regarded as the greatest mathematical logician in the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #879160 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-28
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .97" h x 6.11" w x 9.17" l, 1.36 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 392 pages

Review
This volume . . . is a reprint of the revised 1956 version of this notable title first published in 1944 in the Annals of Mathematics Studies. Quite a pedigree . . . [I]t is fitting that the release of this inexpensive reprint should make his masterly treatise available to everyone with an interest in the subject. -- Australian & New Zealand Physicist

From the Publisher
One of the pioneers of mathematical logic in the twentieth century was Alonzo Church. He introduced such concepts as the lambda calculus, now an essential tool of computer science, and was the founder of the Journal of Symbolic Logic. In Introduction to Mathematical Logic, Church presents a masterful overview of the subjectone which should be read by every researcher and student of logic. The previous edition of this book was in the Princeton Mathematical Series.