(P/B) TO MOCK A MOCKINGBIRD

Παρουσίαση

In this entertaining and challenging collection of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan - author of Forever Undecided - continues to delight and astonish us with his gift for making available, in the thoroughly pleasurable form of puzzles, some of the most important mathematical thinking of our time.
In the first part of the book, he transports us once again to that wonderful realm where knights, knaves, twin sisters, quadruplet brothers, gods, demons, and mortals either always tell the truth or always lie, and where truth-seekers are set a variety of fascinating problems. The section culminates in an enchanting and profound metapuzzle in which Inspector Craig of Scotland Yard gets involved in a search for the Fountain of Youth on the Island of Knights and Knaves.
In the second part of To Mock a Mockingbird, we accompany the Inspector on a summer-long adventure into the field of combinatory logic (a branch of logic that plays an important role in computer science and artificial intelligence). His adventure, which includes enchanted forests, talking birds, bird sociologists, and a classic quest, provides for us along the way the pleasure of solving puzzles of increasing complexity until we reach the Master Forest and - thanks to Godel's famous theorem - the final revelation. (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Part I - Logic Puzzles
1: The Prize and Other Puzzles
2: The Absentminded Logician
3: The Barber of Seville
4: The Mystery of the Photograph
Part II - Knights, Knaves, and the Fountain of Youth
5: Some Unusual Knights and Knaves
6: Day-Knights and Night Knights
7: Gods, Demons, and Mortals
8: In Search of the Fountain of Youth
Part III - To Mock a Mockingbird
9: To Mock a Mockingbird
10: s There a Sage Bird
11: Birds Galore
12: Mockingbirds, Warblers, and Starlings
13: A Gallery of Sage Birds
Part IV - Singing Birds
14: Curry's Lively Bird Forest
15: Russell's Forrest
16: The Forest Without a Name
17: Godel's Forest
Part V - The Master Forest
18: The Master Forest
19: Aristocratic Birds
20: Craig's Discovery
Part VI - The Grand Question
21: The Fixed Point Principle
22: A Glimpse into Infinity
23: Logical Birds
24: Birds That Can Do Arithmetic
25: Is There an Ideal Bird
Epilogue
Who's Who Among the Birds