Raymond Smullyan

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Raymond Smullyan [1] Raymond Merrill Smullyan, (May 25, 1919 - February 6, 2017 [2])

was an American mathematician, logician, philosopher, magician, pianist, and professor of Philosophy at Indiana University Bloomington. He held a Ph.D. in mathematics on the theory of formal systems from Princeton University under advisor Alonzo Church [3]. Smullyan was author of fourteen books and of numerous research articles on the topics of mathematical logic, first-order logic, set theory, theory of computable functions, recreational mathematics, mathematical games and puzzles, retrograde chess problems, and Eastern philosophy. He has been a contributor to Scientific American [4].

Selected Publications#

1959#

• Raymond Smullyan (1959). Theory of Formal Systems. Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, advisor Alonzo Church

1960 …#

• Raymond Smullyan (1961). Theory of Formal Systems. AM-47, Annals of Mathematics, Princeton University Press
• Raymond Smullyan (1968). First-Order Logic. Springer [5]

1970 …#

• Raymond Smullyan (1977). The Tao Is Silent. HarperOne
• Raymond Smullyan (1977). Is God a Taoist? MIT
• Raymond Smullyan (1978). What Is the Name of This Book? The Riddle of Dracula and Other Logical Puzzles. Prentice Hall [6] [7]
• Raymond Smullyan (1979). The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes. Knopf [8]

1980 …#

• Raymond Smullyan (1981). The Chess Mysteries of the Arabian Knights . Knopf [9]

Where is the white king? [10]

• Raymond Smullyan (1982). The Lady or the Tiger? - ladies, tigers, and more logic puzzles. Random House [11] [12]
• Raymond Smullyan (1982). An Epistemological Nightmare. MIT [13]
• Raymond Smullyan (1985). To Mock a Mockingbird and Other Logic Puzzles: Including an Amazing Adventure in Combinatory Logic. Knopf
• Raymond Smullyan (1987). Alice in Puzzle-Land: A Carrollian Tale for Children Under Eighty. Penguin Books, Introduction by Martin Gardner

1990 …#

• Raymond Smullyan (1992). Satan, Cantor and Infinity: Mind-Boggling Puzzles. Knopf
• Raymond Smullyan (1992). Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems. Oxford University Press [14]
• Raymond Smullyan (1993). Recursion Theory for Metamathematics. Oxford University Press [15]
• Raymond Smullyan (1994). Diagonalization and Self-Reference. Oxford University Press
• Raymond Smullyan (1995). First-Order Logic. Dover Publications
• Raymond Smullyan (1996). Set Theory and the Continuum Problem. Oxford University Press [16]
• Raymond Smullyan (1998). The Riddle of Scheherazade: And Other Amazing Puzzles. Mariner Books

2000 …#

• Raymond Smullyan (2000). To Mock a Mockingbird - And Other Logic Puzzles. Oxford University Press
• Raymond Smullyan (2002). Some Interesting Memories: A Paradoxical Life. Thinkers’ Press
• Raymond Smullyan (2003). Who Knows? A Study of Religious Consciousness. Indiana University Press
• Raymond Smullyan (2007). The Magic Garden of George B. And Other Logic Puzzles. Polimetrica
• Raymond Smullyan (2008). Logical Labyrinths. A K Peters
• Raymond Smullyan (2009). Satan, Cantor and Infinity: Mind-Boggling Puzzles. Dover Publications

2010 …#

• Raymond Smullyan (2010). King Arthur in Search of His Dog and Other Curious Puzzles. Dover Books on Mathematics
• Raymond Smullyan (2011). The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes. Dover Books on Mathematics, reprint of the Knopf, 1979 edition [17] [18]
• Raymond Smullyan (2013). The Gödelian Puzzle Book: Puzzles, Paradoxes and Proofs. Dover Publications
• Jason Rosenhouse, Raymond Smullyan (2014). Four Lives: A Celebration of Raymond Smullyan. Dover Publications

External Links#

Smullyan#

• Raymond Smullyan from Wikipedia
• Raymond Smullyan - Wikiquote
• Raymond Smullyan | Department of Philosophy | Indiana University Bloomington
• The Mathematics Genealogy Project - Raymond Smullyan
• Smullyan biography, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland
• Raymond Smullyan and friends from Kadon Enterprises, Inc.
• Mathematician and puzzle-maker Raymond Smullyan dead at 97 by Hannah Osborne, International Business Times, February 10, 2017
• In Joop van Oosterom and Raymond Smullyan, chess loses two colorful characters by David R. Sands, Washington Times, February 14, 2017 [19]

A Mathematical Mystery Tour#

• A Mathematical Mystery Tour - BBC Horizon Documentary (1984), edited 1985 Nova version, Vimeo Video

featuring Jean Dieudonné, Michael Atiyah, Greg Moore, Paul Erdős, René Thom, Raymond Smullyan, and Ivor Grattan-Guinness - White Knight at 42:25

• Intro
  • Fermat’s Last Theorem 1:40
  • Goldbach’s conjecture 1:49
  • Riemann hypothesis 2:02
  • Classification Problem for 4-D Manifolds 2:12
  • P versus NP problem 2:26
  • Invariant Subspace Problem for Hilbert Spaces 2:38
• A Mathematical Mystery Tour 3:00

1. Proof Beyond Doubt 5:06
   1. Proof 5:45
   2. Euclid’s theorem 6:58
   3. Are there infinitely many twin primes? 7:25
   4. Goldbach’s conjecture 7:50
   5. Mertens conjecture 8:17
   6. Fermat’s Last Theorem 9:10
   7. Erdős’ problems 12:39
2. The Foundations of Mathematics 13:21
   1. Chinese mathematics 13:25
   2. Egyptian mathematics 13:42
   3. Euclid’s Elements 15:00
   4. Parallel postulate 16:04
   5. Non-Euclidean geometry 16:10
   6. Hypercube 16:24
   7. Klein bottle 17:00
3. Discovery or Invention 19:21
   1. Platonism 19:49
   2. Pythagorean theorem 19:57
   3. Golden rectangle 20:48
4. A Question of Infinity 24:20
   1. Infinity 24:20
   2. Pi 24:50
   3. Mersenne prime 26:36
   4. Countable set 27:58
   5. Uncountable set 30:00
   6. Aleph number 30:50
5. Cracks in the Foundation 32:06
   1. Mathematical logic 32:06
   2. Russell’s paradox 32:32
   3. Principia Mathematica 36:26
6. Back to Basics 38:32
   1. Bourbaki Group 38:40
   2. Hilbert’s program 41:25
   3. White Knight 42:25
7. The Uncertain Future 44:46
   1. Gödel’s incompleteness theorems 44:52
   2. Continuum hypothesis 46:30
   3. Four color theorem 46:38
   4. Computer-assisted proof 50:04

References#

1. ↑ Smullyan Portraits, McTutor History of Mathematics
2. ↑ Mathematician and puzzle-maker Raymond Smullyan dead at 97 by Hannah Osborne, International Business Times, February 10, 2017
3. ↑ The Mathematics Genealogy Project - Raymond Smullyan
4. ↑ Raymond Smullyan | Department of Philosophy | Indiana University Bloomington
5. ↑ first-order logic from Wikipedia
6. ↑ George Boolos (1996). The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever. The Harvard Review of Philosophy. Vol. 6, pdf
7. ↑ Knights and Knaves - Wikipedia
8. ↑ Smullyan Problem in Sherlock Holmes book by Christopher Heckman, rgcc, January 18, 2013
9. ↑ Retrospektive (Retroanalyse) from German Wikipedia, Raymond Smullyan, Manchester Guardian, 1957
10. ↑ on c3, capturing a pawn from b3, which took on c3 en passant after 1… Bd5+ 2. c4
11. ↑ inspired by Frank R. Stockton (1882). The Lady, or the Tiger? The Century Magazine
12. ↑ Tiefes Wasser, Der Spiegel 32/1982 (German)
13. ↑ Epistemology from Wikipedia
14. ↑ Gödel’s incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia
15. ↑ Metamathematics from Wikipedia
16. ↑ Continuum hypothesis from Wikipedia
17. ↑ Raymond Smullyan introducing retrograde analysis in the game of chess
18. ↑ Smullyan Problem in Sherlock Holmes book by Christopher Heckman, rgcc, January 18, 2013
19. ↑ Joop van Oosterom from Wikipedia

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