Synopses & Reviews
This junior/senior level text is devoted to a study of first-order logic and its role in the foundations of mathematics: What is a proof? How can a proof be justified? To what extent can a proof be made a purely mechanical procedure? How much faith can we have in a proof that is so complex that no one can follow it through in a lifetime? The first substantial answers to these questions have only been obtained in this century. The most striking results are contained in Goedel's work: First, it is possible to give a simple set of rules that suffice to carry out all mathematical proofs; but, second, these rules are necessarily incomplete - it is impossible, for example, to prove all true statements of arithmetic. The book begins with an introduction to first-order logic, Goedel's theorem, and model theory. A second part covers extensions of first-order logic and limitations of the formal methods. The book covers several advanced topics, not commonly treated in introductory texts, such as Trachtenbrot's undecidability theorem. Fraissé's elementary equivalence, and Lindstroem's theorem on the maximality of first-order logic.
Review
"...the book remains my text of choice for this type of material, and I highly recommend it to anyone teaching a first logic course at this level." - Journal of Symbolic Logic
Synopsis
What is a mathematical proof? How can proofs be justified? Are there limitations to provability? To what extent can machines carry out mathe matical proofs? Only in this century has there been success in obtaining substantial and satisfactory answers. The present book contains a systematic discussion of these results. The investigations are centered around first-order logic. Our first goal is Godel's completeness theorem, which shows that the con sequence relation coincides with formal provability: By means of a calcu lus consisting of simple formal inference rules, one can obtain all conse quences of a given axiom system (and in particular, imitate all mathemat ical proofs). A short digression into model theory will help us to analyze the expres sive power of the first-order language, and it will turn out that there are certain deficiencies. For example, the first-order language does not allow the formulation of an adequate axiom system for arithmetic or analysis. On the other hand, this difficulty can be overcome--even in the framework of first-order logic-by developing mathematics in set-theoretic terms. We explain the prerequisites from set theory necessary for this purpose and then treat the subtle relation between logic and set theory in a thorough manner."
Synopsis
The book starts with a thorough treatment of first-order logic and its role in the foundations of mathematics. It covers several advanced topics, not commonly treated in introductory texts, such as Trachtenbrot's undecidability theorem Fraisse's characterization of elementary equivalence, Lindstrom's theorem on the maximality of first-order logic, and the fundamentals of logic programming.
Synopsis
This introduction to first-order logic clearly works out the role of first-order logic in the foundations of mathematics, particularly the two basic questions of the range of the axiomatic method and of theorem-proving by machines. It covers several advanced topics not commonly treated in introductory texts, such as Fraïssé's characterization of elementary equivalence, Lindström's theorem on the maximality of first-order logic, and the fundamentals of logic programming.
Table of Contents
Preface; Part A: 1. Introduction; 2. Syntax of First-Order Languages; 3. Semantics of first-Order Languages; 4. A Sequent Calculus; 5. The Completeness Theorem; 6. The Lowenheim-Skolem and the Compactness Theorem; 7. The Scope of First-Order Logic; 8. Syntactic Interpretations and Normal Forms; Part B: 9. Extensions of First-Order Logic; 10. Limitations of the Formal Method; 11. Free Models and Logic Programming; 12. An Algebraic Characterization of Elementary Equivalence; 13. Lindstroem's Theorems; References; Symbol Index; Subject Index