Reuben Goodstein

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Reuben Louis Goodstein (born December 15, 1912 in London , † March 8, 1985 in Leicester ) was a British mathematician who dealt in particular with mathematical logic and philosophy and the fundamentals of mathematics .

Life

Goodstein went to St. Paul's School in London, where he won a math award and scholarship. From 1931 he studied mathematics at Cambridge University (Magdalene College), where he graduated in 1933 (with a specialization in analysis) and then researched transfinite cardinal numbers under John Edensor Littlewood . In 1934/35 he was one of the students who were allowed to work out Ludwig Wittgenstein's lectures (Blue Book). In 1935 he received his master’s degree and taught at the University of Reading , where he took over a significant part of mathematics teaching, especially during the Second World War. In 1946 he received his doctorate from the University of London and in 1948 became a professor at University College in Leicester, where he remained until his retirement in 1977. 1966 to 1969 he was vice chancellor of the university.

Goodstein is best known today for the Goodstein series (1944). A related sentence can be formulated in Peano arithmetic, but not proven in it, as Jeff Paris and Laurie Kirby showed. He dealt with recursive arithmetic and finitistic foundations of mathematics and in 1954 refined the logic-free formulation of the primitive recursive arithmetic founded by Skolem (first shown by Haskell Curry 1941). In addition to mathematical logic (in which he held the first professorship in Great Britain) and philosophy of mathematics and analysis, he was also very interested in didactics of mathematics. 1956 to 1962 he was editor of the Mathematical Gazette.

In 1962 he gave a lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Stockholm ( A recursive lattice ).

Martin Löb is one of his students .

Fonts

  • Fundamental concepts of mathematics, Pergamon Press, 1962, 2nd edition 1979
  • Essays in the philosophy of mathematics, Leicester University Press 1965
  • Recursive Analysis, North Holland 1961, Dover 2010
  • Mathematical Logic, Leicester University Press 1957
  • Development of mathematical logic, London, Logos Press 1971
  • Complex functions, McGraw Hill 1965
  • Boolean Algebra, Pergamon Press 1963, Dover 2007
  • Recursive number theory - a development of recursive arithmetic in a logic-free equation calculus, North Holland 1957
  • Constructive formalism - essays on the foundations of mathematics, Leicester University College 1951
  • with EJF Primrose: Axiomatic projective geometry, Leicester University College 1953

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Goodstein, Reuben
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goodstein, Reuben Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1985
Place of death Leicester