Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears published!

Brought to the front — short version: GWT is available on Amazon, print on demand.

Long version: Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears is based on notes for the lectures I used to give to undergraduate philosophers taking the Mathematical Logic paper in Cambridge. Earlier versions were available here online, and have been much downloaded for a decade (and I know they have been used for seminars/lecture courses elsewhere). As occupational therapy in this time of pandemic, I have now considerably tidied-up the notes into a book format — and many thanks to all those who have helped along with way with suggestions and corrections. You can think of the result as a much cut-down version of big Gödel book; it is just over a third of the length, but still aiming to explain some of the key technical facts about the incompleteness theorems.

The book is now available as a very inexpensive, at cost, print-on-demand book for less than $5/£4/€4.5. See e.g. US link, UK link; you can ‘look inside’ from the linked pages. For other Amazons, use the ASIN identifier B08L5MQLRQ. (Sorry about using Amazon; but they bought up the CreateSpace platform …)

The book will also eventually become freely available as a PDF download. But if you want to get a free copy right now, then here is how. Email (a version of) the following note to the relevant university librarian, copying me in (peter_smith at logicmatters dot net):

Please order the following two books for the library:

Peter Smith, An Introduction to Formal Logic (2nd edition, originally published by Cambridge University Press 2020; now available as an inexpensive Amazon print-on-demand book; ISBN 979-8675803941; ASIN B08GB4BDPG.)

Peter Smith, Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears (Logic Matters 2020; available as an inexpensive Amazon print-on-demand book; ISBN 979-8677892196; ASIN B08L5MQLRQ.)

I’ll reply to your email with a PDF of GWT. If your library uses a web-based form, bounce on to me the order acknowledgement — or do something else similarly convincing ;-) As you’ll see from the prices, the royalties coming my way will be trivial. What I do really care about is making sure that the two books are indeed in libraries (especially for the significant number of students who, for one reason or another, much prefer to work from printed texts). And so I hope this tiny bribe of the early free PDF will encourage people to ask for library copies!

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