Sunday, June 19, 2005

I'm just glad they're still writing things like this...

If I could be sure it was there, I'd rush out to my favorite local bookstore and buy The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel by Rebecca Goldstein.

David Kipen reviews the book in the SF Chronicle, and it is filled with the standard non-mathematician fears of the complicated world of theorems and number theory. (He even has a great parenthetical apology stating, "and any mathematicians out there are now respectfully beseeched to leave the room, in the justifiable fear that any paraphrase will likely contain more factual errors than it does words.") But Kipen goes on to state that the book is, "a deeply confounding book -- brainbustingly hard in some stretches, beguilingly empathic in others."

Nothing like that sort of statement to really get me wanting to read.

I'll be back with a review.

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