robertrivasplata's profile picture

robertrivasplata 's review for:

Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Christos Papadimitriou, Apostolos Doxiadis
4.0

Graphic novelization of the story of Bertrand Russell’s & other logicians of his era’s attempts to ground mathematics in logic. As I understand from this book, this effort meant Russell was trying to replace unprovable axioms that had to be taken as givens with provable foundations for arithmetic. This is my second time reading this book, & I think I got more out of it this time because I've since been reading Existential Comics, which often features Russell, Wittgenstein, Godel, & the Vienna Circle as characters. I wish Logicomix had explored (even) more of Russell’s messy personal life. I also enjoyed how Logicomix is self-referential, & uses this as part of its explanation of “self-reference” in the field of logic. The notes at the end are worth reading.