History

Biographies

content/history/biographies/biographies.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-chapter]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olchapter{his}{bio}{Biographies}\olimport{georg-cantor}\olimport{alonzo-church}\olimport{gerhard-gentzen}\olimport{kurt-goedel}\olimport{emmy-noether}\olimport{rozsa-peter}\olimport{julia-robinson}\olimport{bertrand-russell}\olimport{alfred-tarski}\olimport{alan-turing}\olimport{ernst-zermelo}\OLEndChapterHook\end{document}

content/history/biographies/georg-cantor.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies % Section: georg-cantor\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{can}\olsection{Georg Cantor}\olphoto{cantor-georg}{Georg Cantor}An early biography of Georg Cantor (\textsc{gay}-org\textsc{kahn}-tor) claimed that he was born and found on a ship thatwas sailing for Saint Petersburg, Russia, and that his parents wereunknown. This, however, is not true; although he was born in SaintPetersburg in 1845.Cantor received his doctorate in mathematics at the University of Berlin in1867. He is known for his work in set theory, and is credited with foundingset theory as a distinctive research discipline.He was the first to prove that there are infinite sets of different sizes.His theories, and especially his theory of infinities, caused much debateamong mathematicians at the time, and his work was controversial.Cantor's religious beliefs and his mathematical work were inextricablytied; he even claimed that the theory of transfinite numbers had beencommunicated to him directly by God. In later life, Cantor sufferedfrom mental illness. Beginning in 1894, and more frequently towardshis later years, Cantor was hospitalized.  The heavy criticism of hiswork, including a falling out with the mathematician LeopoldKronecker, led to depression and a lack of interest inmathematics. During depressive episodes, Cantor would turn tophilosophy and literature, and even published a theory that Francis Baconwas the author of Shakespeare's plays.Cantor died on January 6, 1918, in a sanatorium in Halle.\begin{reading} For full biographies of Cantor, see \citet{Dauben1990} and\citet{Grattan-Guinness1971}.  Cantor's radical views are alsodescribed in the BBC Radio 4 program \emph{A Brief History of  Mathematics} \citep{Sautoy2014}.  If you'd like to hear aboutCantor's theories in rap form, see \citet{Rose2012}.\end{reading}\end{document}

content/history/biographies/alonzo-church.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies % Section: alonzo-church\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{chu}\olsection{Alonzo Church}\olphoto{church-alonzo}{Alonzo Church}Alonzo Church was born in Washington, DC on June 14, 1903.  In earlychildhood, an air gun incident left Church blind in one eye. Hefinished preparatory school in Connecticut in 1920 and began hisuniversity education at Princeton that same year. He completed hisdoctoral studies in 1927. After a couple years abroad, Church returnedto Princeton. Church was known to be exceedingly polite and careful. Hisblackboard writing was immaculate, and he would preserve importantpapers by carefully covering them in Duco cement (a clearglue). Outside of his academic pursuits, he enjoyed reading sciencefiction magazines and was not afraid to write to the editors if hespotted any inaccuracies in the writing.Church's academic achievements were great.  Together with his studentsStephen Kleene and Barkley Rosser, he developed a theory of effectivecalculability, the lambda calculus, independently of Alan Turing'sdevelopment of the Turing machine. The two definitions ofcomputability are equivalent, and give rise to what is now known asthe \emph{Church--Turing Thesis}, that a function of the naturalnumbers is effectively computable if and only if it is computable viaTuring machine (or lambda calculus). He also proved what is now knownas \emph{Church's Theorem}: The decision problem for the validity offirst-order formulas is unsolvable.Church continued his work into old age. In 1967 he left Princeton forUCLA, where he was professor until his retirement in 1990. Churchpassed away on August 1, 1995 at the age of 92.\begin{reading} For a brief biography of Church, see \citet{EndertonND}.  Church'soriginal writings on the lambda calculus and the Entscheidungsproblem(Church's Thesis) are \citet{Church1936,Church1936a}.\citet{Aspray1984} records an interview with Church about thePrinceton mathematics community in the 1930s.Church wrote a series of book reviews of the \emph{Journal ofSymbolic Logic} from 1936 until 1979. They are all archived on JohnMacFarlane's website \citep{MacFarlane2015}.\end{reading} \end{document}

content/history/biographies/gerhard-gentzen.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies% Section: gerhard-gentzen\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{gen}\olsection{Gerhard Gentzen}\olphoto{gentzen-gerhard}{Gerhard Gentzen}Gerhard Gentzen is known primarily as the creator of structural prooftheory, and specifically the creation of the natural deduction andsequent calculus !!{derivation} systems. He was born on November 24, 1909 inGreifswald, Germany. Gerhard was homeschooled for three years beforeattending preparatory school, where he was behind most of hisclassmates in terms of education. Despite this, he was a brilliantstudent and showed a strong aptitude for mathematics. His interestswere varied, and he, for instance, also write poems for his mother and playsfor the school theatre.Gentzen began his university studies at the University of Greifswald,but moved around to G\"{o}ttingen, Munich, and Berlin. He received hisdoctorate in 1933 from the University of G\"{o}ttingen under HermannWeyl.  (Paul Bernays supervised most of his work, but was dismissedfrom the university by the Nazis.)  In 1934, Gentzen began work as anassistant to David Hilbert. That same year he developed the sequentcalculus and natural deduction !!{derivation} systems, in his papers\emph{Untersuchungen \"{u}ber das logische Schlie\ss en I--II  [Investigations Into Logical Deduction I--II]}. He proved theconsistency of the Peano axioms in 1936.Gentzen's relationship with the Nazis is complicated.  At the sametime his mentor Bernays was forced to leave Germany, Gentzen joinedthe university branch of the SA, the Nazi paramilitaryorganization. Like many Germans, he was a member of the Naziparty. During the war, he served as a telecommunications officer forthe air intelligence unit. However, in 1942 he was released from dutydue to a nervous breakdown. It is unclear whether or not Gentzen'sloyalties lay with the Nazi party, or whether he joined the party inorder to ensure academic success.In 1943, Gentzen was offered an academic position at the MathematicalInstitute of the German University of Prague, which heaccepted. However, in 1945 the citizens of Prague revolted againstGerman occupation. Soviet forces arrived in the city and arrested allthe professors at the university.  Because of his membership in Naziorganizations, Gentzen was taken to a forced labour camp. He died ofmalnutrition while in his cell on August 4, 1945 at the age of 35.\begin{reading}For a full biography of Gentzen, see \citet{Menzler-Trott2007}.  Aninteresting read about mathematicians under Nazi rule, which gives abrief note about Gentzen's life, is given by \citet{Segal2014}.Gentzen's papers on logical deduction are available in the originalgerman \citep{Gentzen1935a,Gentzen1935b}.  English translations ofGentzen's papers have been collected in a single volume by\citet{Gentzen1969}, which also includes a biographical sketch.\end{reading}\end{document}

content/history/biographies/kurt-goedel.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies % Section: kurt-goedel\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{god}\olsection{Kurt G\"odel}\olphoto{goedel-kurt}{Kurt G{\"o}del}Kurt G{\"o}del (\textsc{ger}-dle) was born on April 28, 1906 inBr{\"u}nn in the Austro-Hungarian empire (now Brno in the CzechRepublic). Due to his inquisitive and bright nature, young Kurtele wasoften called ``Der kleine Herr Warum'' (Little Mr.~Why) by hisfamily. He excelled in academics from primary school onward, where hegot less than the highest grade only in mathematics. G{\"o}del wasoften absent from school due to poor health and was exempt fromphysical education. He was diagnosed with rheumatic feverduring his childhood. Throughout his life, he believed thispermanently affected his heart despite medical assessment sayingotherwise.G{\"o}del began studying at the University of Vienna in 1924 andcompleted his doctoral studies in~1929. He first intended to studyphysics, but his interests soon moved to mathematics and especiallylogic, in part due to the influence of the philosopher RudolfCarnap. His dissertation, written under the supervision of Hans Hahn,proved the completeness theorem of first-order predicate logic withidentity \citep{Godel1929}. Only a year later, he obtained his mostfamous results---the first and second incompleteness theorems(published in \citealt{Godel1931}). During his time in Vienna,G{\"o}del was heavily involved with the Vienna Circle, a group ofscientifically-minded philosophers that included Carnap, whose workwas especially influenced by G{\"o}del's results.In 1938, G\"odel married Adele Nimbursky. His parents were notpleased: not only was she six years older than him and alreadydivorced, but she worked as a dancer in a nightclub. Social pressures did not affect G{\"o}del, however,and they remained happily married until his death.After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, G{\"o}del and Adeleemigrated to the United States, where he took up a position at theInstitute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Despite hisintroversion and eccentric nature, G{\"o}del's time at Princeton wascollaborative and fruitful.  He published essays in set theory,philosophy and physics. Notably, he struck up a particularly strongfriendship with his colleague at the IAS, Albert Einstein.In his later years, G{\"o}del's mental health deteriorated. His wife'shospitalization in 1977 meant she was no longer able to cook his mealsfor him. Having suffered from mental health issues throughout hislife, he succumbed to paranoia. Deathly afraid of being poisoned,G{\"o}del refused to eat. He died of starvation on January 14, 1978, inPrinceton.\begin{reading}For a complete biography of G{\"o}del's life is available, see\citet{Dawson1997}. For further biographical pieces, as well as essaysabout G{\"o}del's contributions to logic and philosophy, see\citet{Wang1990}, \citet{Baaz2011}, \citet{Takeuti2003}, and\citet{Sigmund2007}.G{\"o}del's PhD thesis is available in the original German\citep{Godel1929}.  The original text of the incompleteness theoremsis \citep{Godel1931}. All of G\"odel's published and unpublishedwritings, as well as a selection of correspondence, are available inEnglish in his \emph{Collected Papers} \citet{Godel1986,Godel1990}.For a detailed treatment of G{\"o}del's incompleteness theorems, see\citet{Smith2013}. For an informal, philosophical discussion ofG{\"o}del's theorems, see Mark Linsenmayer's podcast\citep{Linsenmayer2014}.\end{reading}\end{document}

content/history/biographies/emmy-noether.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies % Section: emmy-noether\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{noe}\olsection{Emmy Noether}\olphoto{noether-emmy}{Emmy Noether}Emmy Noether (\textsc{ner}-ter) was born in Erlangen, Germany, onMarch 23, 1882, to an upper-middle class scholarly family. Hailed asthe ``mother of modern algebra,'' Noether made groundbreakingcontributions to both mathematics and physics, despite significantbarriers to women's education. In Germany at the time, young girlswere meant to be educated in arts and were not allowed to attendcollege preparatory schools.  However, after auditing classes at theUniversities of G\"{o}ttingen and Erlangen (where her father wasprofessor of mathematics), Noether was eventually able to enroll as astudent at Erlangen in 1904, when their policy was updated to allowfemale students. She received her doctorate in mathematics in 1907.Despite her qualifications, Noether experienced much resistance duringher career. From 1908--1915, she taught at Erlangen withoutpay. During this time, she caught the attention of David Hilbert, oneof the world's foremost mathematicians of the time, who invited her toG\"{o}ttingen. However, women were prohibited from obtainingprofessorships, and she was only able to lecture under Hilbert's name,again without pay. During this time she proved what is now known asNoether's theorem, which is still used in theoretical physicstoday. Noether was finally granted the right to teach in 1919.Hilbert's response to continued resistance of his universitycolleagues reportedly was: ``Gentlemen, the faculty senate is not abathhouse.''In the later 1920s, she concentrated on work in abstract algebra, andher contributions revolutionized the field.  In her proofs she oftenmade use of the so-called ascending chain condition, which states thatthere is no infinite strictly increasing chain of certain sets. Forinstance, certain algebraic structures now known as Noetherian ringshave the property that there are no infinite sequences of ideals $I_1\subsetneq I_2 \subsetneq \dots$.  The condition can be generalized toany partial order (in algebra, it concerns the special case of idealsordered by the subset relation), and we can also consider the dualdescending chain condition, where every strictly \emph{de}creasingsequence in a partial order eventually ends.  If a partial ordersatisfies the descending chain condition, it is possible to useinduction along this order in a similar way in which we can useinduction along the $<$ order on~$\Nat$.  Such orders are called\emph{well-founded} or \emph{Noetherian}, and the corresponding proofprinciple \emph{Noetherian induction}.Noether was Jewish, and when the Nazis came to power in 1933, she wasdismissed from her position. Luckily, Noether was able to emigrate tothe United States for a temporary position at Bryn Mawr,Pennsylvania. During her time there she also lectured at Princeton,although she found the university to be unwelcoming to women\citep[81]{Dick1981}. In 1935, Noether underwent an operation toremove a uterine tumour. She died from an infection as a result of thesurgery, and was buried at Bryn Mawr.\begin{reading} For a biography of Noether, see \citet{Dick1981}.  The PerimeterInstitute for Theoretical Physics has their lectures on Noether's lifeand influence available online \citep{Perimeter2015}.  If you're tiredof reading, \emph{Stuff You Missed in History Class} has a podcast onNoether's life and influence \citep{Frey2015}.  The collected works ofNoether are available in the original German \citep{Noether1983}.\end{reading}\end{document}

content/history/biographies/rozsa-peter.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies% Section: rozsa-peter\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{pet} \olsection{R\'ozsa P\'eter}\olphoto{peter-rozsa}{R\'ozsa P\'eter} R\'ozsa P\'eter was born R\'osza Politzer, in Budapest, Hungary, onFebruary 17, 1905. She is best known for her work on recursivefunctions, which was essential for the creation of the field ofrecursion theory.P\'eter was raised during harsh political times---WWI raged when shewas a teenager---but was able to attend the affluent Maria TereziaGirls' School in Budapest, from where she graduated in 1922.  She thenstudied at P\'azm\'any P\'eter University (later renamed Lor\'andE\"otv\"os University) in Budapest. She began studying chemistry atthe insistence of her father, but later switched to mathematics, andgraduated in 1927. Although she had the credentials to teach highschool mathematics, the economic situation at the time was dire as theGreat Depression affected the world economy. During this time, P\'etertook odd jobs as a tutor and private teacher of mathematics. Sheeventually returned to university to take up graduate studies inmathematics.  She had originally planned to work in number theory, butafter finding out that her results had already been proven, she almostgave up on mathematics altogether. She was encouraged to work onG\"odel's incompleteness theorems, and unknowingly proved several ofhis results in different ways. This restored her confidence, andP\'eter went on to write her first papers on recursion theory,inspired by David Hilbert's foundational program. She received her PhDin 1935, and in 1937 she became an editor for the \emph{Journal of  Symbolic Logic}.P\'eter's early papers are widely credited as founding contributionsto the field of recursive function theory. In \cite{Peter1935a}, sheinvestigated the relationship between different kinds of recursion.In \cite{Peter1935b}, she showed that a certain recursively definedfunction is not primitive recursive. This simplified an earlier resultdue to Wilhelm Ackermann. P\'eter's simplified function is what's nowoften called the Ackermann function---and sometimes, more properly,the Ackermann--P\'eter function. She wrote the first book on recursivefunction theory \citep{Peter1951}.Despite the importance and influence of her work, P\'eter did notobtain a full-time teaching position until 1945. During the Nazioccupation of Hungary during World War II, P\'eter was not allowed toteach due to anti-Semitic laws. In 1944 the government created aJewish ghetto in Budapest; the ghetto was cut off from the rest of thecity and attended by armed guards. P\'eter was forced to live in theghetto until 1945 when it was liberated. She then went on to teach atthe Budapest Teachers Training College, and from 1955 onward at E\"otv\"osLor\'and University. She was the first female Hungarian mathematicianto become an Academic Doctor of Mathematics, and the first woman to beelected to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.P\'{e}ter was known as a passionate teacher of mathematics, whopreferred to explore the nature and beauty of mathematical problemswith her students rather than to merely lecture. As a result, she wasaffectionately called ``Aunt Rosa'' by her students. P\'eter diedin 1977 at the age of~71.\begin{reading}For more biographical reading, see \citep{Oconnor2014} and\citep{Andrasfai1986}. \citet{Tamassy1994} conducted a brief interviewwith P\'eter. For a fun read about mathematics, see P\'eter's book\emph{Playing With Infinity} \citep{Peter2010}.\end{reading}\end{document}

content/history/biographies/julia-robinson.tex

% Part: history % Chapter: biographies % Section: julia-robinson\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{rob}\olsection{Julia Robinson}\olphoto{robinson-julia}{Julia Robinson}Julia Bowman Robinson was an American mathematician. She is knownmainly for her work on decision problems, and most famously for hercontributions to the solution of Hilbert's tenth problem. Robinson wasborn in St.~Louis, Missouri, on December 8, 1919. Robinson recallsbeing intrigued by numbers already as a child \citep[4]{Reid1986}.At age nine she contracted scarlet fever and suffered from severalrecurrent bouts of rheumatic fever. This forced her to spend much ofher time in bed, putting her behind in her education.  Although shewas able to catch up with the help of private tutors, the physicaleffects of her illness had a lasting impact on her life.Despite her childhood struggles, Robinson graduated high school withseveral awards in mathematics and the sciences. She started heruniversity career at San Diego State College, and transferred to theUniversity of California, Berkeley, as a senior. There she wasinfluenced by the mathematician Raphael Robinson. They became goodfriends, and married in 1941. As a spouse of a faculty member,Robinson was barred from teaching in the mathematics department atBerkeley. Although she continued to audit mathematics classes, shehoped to leave university and start a family. Not long after herwedding, however, Robinson contracted pneumonia. She was told thatthere was substantial scar tissue build up on her heart due to therheumatic fever she suffered as a child. Due to the severity of thescar tissue, the doctor predicted that she would not live past fortyand she was advised not to have children \citep[13]{Reid1986}.Robinson was depressed for a long time, but eventually decided tocontinue studying mathematics. She returned to Berkeley and completedher PhD in 1948 under the supervision of Alfred Tarski. Thefirst-order theory of the real numbers had been shown to be decidableby Tarski, and from G\"odel's work it followed that the first-ordertheory of the natural numbers is undecidable.  It was a major openproblem whether the first-order theory of the rationals is decidableor not. In her thesis \citeyearpar{Robinson1949}, Robinson proved thatit was not. Interested in decision problems, Robinson next attempted to find asolution to Hilbert's tenth problem. This problem was one of a famouslist of 23 mathematical problems posed by David Hilbert in 1900. Thetenth problem asks whether there is an algorithm that will answer, ina finite amount of time, whether or not a polynomial equation withinteger coefficients, such as $3x^2 - 2y +3 = 0$, has a solution inthe integers. Such questions are known as \emph{Diophantine problems}.After some initial successes, Robinson joined forces with Martin Davisand Hilary Putnam, who were also working on the problem. Theysucceeded in showing that exponential Diophantine problems (where theunknowns may also appear as exponents) are undecidable, and showedthat a certain conjecture (later called ``J.R.'')  implies thatHilbert's tenth problem is undecidable\citep{DavisPutnamRobinson1961}.  Robinson continued to work on theproblem throughout the 1960s.  In 1970, the young Russianmathematician Yuri Matijasevich finally proved the J.R. hypothesis.The combined result is now called theMatijasevich--Robinson--Davis--Putnam theorem, or MRDP theorem for short.Matijasevich and Robinson became friends and collaborated on severalpapers. In a letter to Matijasevich, Robinson once wrote that``actually I am very pleased that working together (thousands of milesapart) we are obviously making more progress than either one of uscould alone'' \citep[45]{Matijasevich1992}.Robinson was the first female president of the American MathematicalSociety, and the first woman to be elected to the NationalAcademy of Science. She died on July 30, 1985 at the age of 65 afterbeing diagnosed with leukemia.\begin{reading}Robinson's mathematical papers are available in her \textit{Collected  Works} \citep{Robinson1996}, which also includes a reprint of herNational Academy of Sciences biographical memoir\citep{Feferman1994}. Robinson's older sister Constance Reid publishedan ``Autobiography of Julia,'' based on interviews \citep{Reid1986},as well as a full memoir \citep{Reid1996}. A short documentary aboutRobinson and Hilbert's tenth problem was directed by George Csicsery\citep{Csicsery2016}. For a brief memoir about Yuri Matijasevich'scollaborations with Robinson, and her influence on his work, see\citep{Matijasevich1992}.\end{reading}\end{document}

content/history/biographies/bertrand-russell.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies% Section: bertrand-russell\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{rus} \olsection{Bertrand Russell}\olphoto{russell-bertrand}{Bertrand Russell}Bertrand Russell is hailed as one of the founders of modern analyticphilosophy. Born May 18, 1872, Russell was not only known for his workin philosophy and logic, but wrote many popular books in varioussubject areas. He was also an ardent political activist throughout hislife.Russell was born in Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales. His parents weremembers of the British nobility. They were free-thinkers, and evenmade friends with the radicals in Boston at the time.  Unfortunately,Russell's parents died when he was young, and Russell was sent to livewith his grandparents. There, he was given a religious upbringing(something his parents had wanted to avoid at all costs). Hisgrandmother was very strict in all matters of morality. Duringadolescence he was mostly homeschooled by private tutors.Russell's influence in analytic philosophy, and especially logic, istremendous. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Trinity College,Cambridge, where he was influenced by the mathematician andphilosopher Alfred North Whitehead.  In 1910, Russell and Whiteheadpublished the first volume of \emph{Principia Mathematica}, where theychampioned the view that mathematics is reducible to logic. He went onto publish hundreds of books, essays and political pamphlets. In 1950,he won the Nobel Prize for literature.Russell's was deeply entrenched in politics and socialactivism. During World War~I he was arrested and sent to prison forsix months due to pacifist activities and protest. While in prison, hewas able to write and read, and claims to have found the experience``quite agreeable.'' He remained a pacifist throughout his life, andwas again incarcerated for attending a nuclear disarmament rally in1961. He also survived a plane crash in 1948, where the only survivorswere those sitting in the smoking section. As such, Russell claimedthat he owed his life to smoking. Russell was married four times, buthad a reputation for carrying on extra-marital affairs.  He died onFebruary 2, 1970 at the age of 97 in Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales.\begin{reading}Russell wrote an autobiography in three parts, spanning his life from1872--1967 \citep{Russell1967,Russell1968,Russell1969}.  The BertrandRussell Research Centre at McMaster University is home of the BertrandRussell archives. See their website at \citet{Duncan2015}, forinformation on the volumes of his collected works (includingsearchable indexes), and archival projects.  Russell's paper \emph{On  Denoting} \citep{Russell1905} is a classic of 20th century analyticphilosophy.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Russell\citep{Irvine2015} has sound clips of Russell speaking on Desire andPolitical theory. Many video interviews with Russell are availableonline. To see him talk about smoking and being involved in a planecrash, e.g., see \citet{RussellND}. Some of Russell's works, includinghis \emph{Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy} are available asfree audiobooks on \citet{LibriVoxND}.\end{reading}\end{document}

content/history/biographies/alfred-tarski.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies % Section: alfred-tarski\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{tar}\olsection{Alfred Tarski}\olphoto{tarski-alfred}{Alfred Tarski}Alfred Tarski was born on January 14, 1901 in Warsaw, Poland (thenpart of the Russian Empire). Described as ``Napoleonic,'' Tarski wasboisterous, talkative, and intense.  His energy was often reflected inhis lectures---he once set fire to a wastebasket while disposing of acigarette during a lecture, and was forbidden from lecturing in thatbuilding again.Tarski had a thirst for knowledge from a young age. Although later inlife he would tell students that he studied logic because it was theonly class in which he got a~B, his high school records show that hegot A's across the board---even in logic. He studied at the Universityof Warsaw from 1918 to 1924. Tarski first intended to studybiology, but became interested in mathematics, philosophy, and logic,as the university was the center of the Warsaw School of Logic andPhilosophy. Tarski earned his doctorate in 1924 under the supervision ofStanis\l{}aw Le\'{s}niewski.Before emigrating to the United States in 1939, Tarski completed someof his most important work while working as a secondary school teacherin Warsaw. His work on logical consequence and logical truth werewritten during this time. In 1939, Tarski was visiting the UnitedStates for a lecture tour. During his visit, Germany invaded Poland,and because of his Jewish heritage, Tarski could not return.  His wifeand children remained in Poland until the end of the war, but werethen able to emigrate to the United States as well.  Tarski taught atHarvard, the College of the City of New York, and the Institute forAdvanced Study at Princeton, and finally the University of California,Berkeley. There he founded the multidisciplinary program in Logic andthe Methodology of Science.  Tarski died on October 26, 1983 at theage of 82.\begin{reading} For more on Tarski's life, see the biography \emph{Alfred Tarski: Life  and Logic} \citep{Feferman2004}. Tarski's seminal works on logicalconsequence and truth are available in English in \citep{Tarski1983}.All of Tarski's original works have been collected into a four volumeseries, \citep{Tarski1981}.\end{reading}\end{document}

content/history/biographies/alan-turing.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies % Section: alan-turing \documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{tur} \olsection{Alan Turing}Alan Turing was born in Maida Vale, London, on June 23, 1912. He isconsidered the father of theoretical computer science. Turing'sinterest in the physical sciences and mathematics started at a youngage. However, as a boy his interests were not represented well in hisschools, where emphasis was placed on literature andclassics. Consequently, he did poorly in school and was reprimanded bymany of his teachers.\olphoto{turing-alan}{Alan Turing}Turing attended King's College, Cambridge as an undergraduate, wherehe studied mathematics. In 1936 Turing developed (what is now called)the Turing machine as an attempt to precisely define the notion of acomputable function and to prove the undecidability of the decisionproblem. He was beaten to the result by Alonzo Church, who proved theresult via his own lambda calculus. Turing's paper was still publishedwith reference to Church's result. Church invited Turing to Princeton,where he spent 1936--1938, and obtained a doctorate under Church.Despite his interest in logic, Turing's earlier interests in physicalsciences remained prevalent. His practical skills were put to workduring his service with the British cryptanalytic department atBletchley Park during World War~II. Turing was a central figure incracking the cypher used by German Naval communications---the Enigmacode.  Turing's expertise in statistics and cryptography, togetherwith the introduction of electronic machinery, gave the team theability to crack the code by creating a de-crypting machine called a``bombe.'' His ideas also helped in the creation of the world's firstprogrammable electronic computer, the Colossus, also used at Bletchleypark to break the German Lorenz cypher.Turing was gay. Nevertheless, in 1942 he proposed to Joan Clarke, oneof his teammates at Bletchley Park, but later broke off the engagementand confessed to her that he was homosexual. He had several loversthroughout his lifetime, although homosexual acts were then criminaloffences in the UK. In 1952, Turing's house was burgled by a friend ofhis lover at the time, and when filing a police report, Turingadmitted to having a homosexual relationship, under the impressionthat the government was on their way to legalizing homosexualacts. This was not true, and he was charged with grossindecency. Instead of going to prison, Turing opted for a hormonetreatment that reduced libido.  Turing was found dead on June 8, 1954,of a cyanide overdose---most likely suicide. He was given a royalpardon by Queen Elizabeth~II in 2013.\begin{reading}For a comprehensive biography of Alan Turing, see \citet{Hodges2014}.Turing's life and work inspired a play, \emph{Breaking the Code},which was produced in 1996 for TV starring Derek Jacobi asTuring. \emph{The Imitation Game}, an Academy Award nominated filmstarring Bendict Cumberbatch and Kiera Knightley, is also looselybased on Alan Turing's life and time at Bletchley Park\citep{Imitation2014}.\citet{Radiolab2012} has several podcasts on Turing's life and work.BBC Horizon's documentary \emph{The Strange Life and Death of  Dr.~Turing} is available to watch online \citep{Sykes1992}.\citep{Theelen2012} is a short video of a working LEGO TuringMachine---made to honour Turing's centenary in 2012.Turing's original paper on Turing machines and the decision problem is\citet{Turing1937}.\end{reading}\end{document}

content/history/biographies/ernst-zermelo.tex

% Part: history% Chapter: biographies% Section: ernst-zermelo\documentclass[../../../include/open-logic-section]{subfiles}\begin{document}\olfileid{his}{bio}{zer}\olsection{Ernst Zermelo}\olphoto{zermelo-ernst}{Ernst Zermelo}Ernst Zermelo was born on July 27, 1871 in Berlin, Germany. He hadfive sisters, though his family suffered from poor health and onlythree survived to adulthood. His parents also passed away when he wasyoung, leaving him and his siblings orphans when he was seventeen.Zermelo had a deep interest in the arts, and especially in poetry. Hewas known for being sharp, witty, and critical. His most celebratedmathematical achievements include the introduction of the axiom ofchoice (in 1904), and his axiomatization of set theory (in 1908).Zermelo's interests at university were varied. He took courses inphysics, mathematics, and philosophy. Under the supervision of HermannSchwarz, Zermelo completed his dissertation \emph{Investigations in  the Calculus of Variations} in 1894 at the University of Berlin. In1897, he decided to pursue more studies at the University ofG\"{o}ttigen, where he was heavily influenced by the foundational workof David Hilbert. In 1899 he became eligible for professorship, butdid not get one until eleven years later---possibly due to his strangedemeanour and ``nervous haste.''Zermelo finally received a paid professorship at the University ofZurich in 1910, but was forced to retire in 1916 due totuberculosis. After his recovery, he was given an honouraryprofessorship at the University of Freiburg in 1921. During this timehe worked on foundational mathematics.  He became irritated with theworks of Thoralf Skolem and Kurt G\"{o}del, and publicly criticizedtheir approaches in his papers.  He was dismissed from his position atFreiburg in 1935, due to his unpopularity and his opposition toHitler's rise to power in Germany. The later years of Zermelo's life were marked by isolation. After hisdismissal in 1935, he abandoned mathematics. He moved to the countrywhere he lived modestly. He married in 1944, and became completelydependent on his wife as he was going blind. Zermelo lost his sightcompletely by 1951. He passed away in G\"{u}nterstal, Germany, on May21, 1953.\begin{reading}For a full biography of Zermelo, see \citet{Ebbinghaus2015}.Zermelo's seminal 1904 and 1908 papers are available to read in theoriginal German \citep{Zermelo1904,Zermelo1908}.  Zermelo's collectedworks, including his writing on physics, are available in Englishtranslation in \citep{Ebbinghaus2010,Ebbinghaus2013}.\end{reading}\end{document}