Re:Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears
by eli_gottlieb on Monday September 30, 2013 @03:13PM
(#6471624)
Is it really that great? I started reading it when in college, got tired of lugging a huge dead-tree book around in my bag, and eventually just sort of put it down. Maybe I didn't get far enough in to hit the parts that would be interesting to someone who's already long-since done basic programming and math?
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Re:Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears
by breckinloggins on Monday September 30, 2013 @03:34PM
(#6471766)
It's probably not that earth-shattering if you already have an appreciation for the beauty of mathematical patterns and thought, but if you're a 19 year old college kid like I was who thought he hated math, it will definitely cause you to rethink your position.
Keith Devlin's popular mathematics works also have much the same appeal.
It definitely blew my mind when I first read it, but I think its also gained a big cult following creating a lot of hype. I thought about it a lot for a few months after I read it, but I certainly haven't thought about it in over a year and it definitely hasn't shaped the way I think about things now (at least not that I'm aware of). If you haven't taken the math behind it, its awesome and you should definitely read the first 14 chapters if you're interested. But after that, its basically a bunch of Hofstatdler's musings on DNA and AI, a lot of which seems outdated and like a lot of speculation (the book was published ~25 years ago).
Then again, most books I've read I forget about much sooner than a few months. If you want a good read, go for it, but its not some holy grail that will change your life forever.
I started reading it when in college, got tired of lugging a huge dead-tree book around in my bag, and eventually just sort of put it down.
That it was heavy in your bag isn't really saying much about the book. Are you familiar with Russell's Paradox? If reading about Russell's Paradox for the first time demands that you work it around in your head for the next hour as though some outside force is compelling you to understand its implications, then the book is probably for you. If that sounds miserable, then it probably isn't.