Dr. Albert Baker, Chair of the Department of Computer Science, has been invited to speak to the ACM Chapter at UA Little Rock.
Self-reference: Pondering the Implications of Godel’s Proof
Godel’s theorem and its proof has shaken all of mathematics since its publication in 1932. The proof is based on the mutually self-referencing capacity of formal logic and the theory of natural numbers. Statements in formal logic and proofs can be mapped to natural numbers and functions over natural numbers. Godel used this mapping to prove some fundamental limitations on what we can prove (and can’t prove) about formal systems capable of expressing properties of natural numbers. This session will be a talk about the proof, the possible implications of the theorem for mathematics, human reasoning, and what is knowable. We’re going to spend a few minutes thinking about thinking
Join the ACM November 3 at 5 pm in EIT 203 or online @ https://meet.google.com/cjt-dibm-yxx
