![]() ![]() If every step of a theorem could be verified mechanically, the burden on intuition would be limited to the axioms. A work of philosophy as well as mathematics, Turing's thesis envisions a practical goal-a logical system to formalize mathematical proofs so they can be checked mechanically. This book presents a facsimile of the original typescript of the thesis along with essays by Andrew Appel and Solomon Feferman that explain its still-unfolding significance. ![]() Though less well known than his other work, Turing's 1938 Princeton PhD thesis, "Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals," which includes his notion of an oracle machine, has had a lasting influence on computer science and mathematics. Some of the greatest logicians in the world-including Alonzo Church, Kurt Gdel, John von Neumann, and Stephen Kleene-were at Princeton in the 1930s, and they were working on ideas that would lay the groundwork for what would become known as computer science. Between inventing the concept of a universal computer in 1936 and breaking the German Enigma code during World War II, Alan Turing (1912-1954), the British founder of computer science and artificial intelligence, came to Princeton University to study mathematical logic. ![]()
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