Tuesday 14 August 2007

Engines of Logic

It seems only right that I put in a plug for the book Engines of Logic by the other, more famous Martin Davis. And here's an interesting article which reviews the book in particular reference to the occupational health hazards of being a mathematician. It's a good antidote to any regrets you might have about not being real smart.

2 comments:

Jonathan said...

Cool stuff - I have to read that book sometime!

A couple of other science history/biographies you might like:

Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" (physics, chemistry, biology)

Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe" (string theory and the people who do it; but I especially liked the first half describing the physics leading up to string theory (Einstein, quantum))

Jonathan said...

Interesting BBC documentary on four mathematicians/scientists: Cantor, Boltzmann, Gödel, and Turing: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3503877302082311448&hl=en. A bit fluffy, but neat to see the personalities and the historical context.