Teach Yourself Logic, #11. New version of the Guide (plus something on Robbin 1979)

Right. I really must get on with other work (in particular the task of writing exercises for the Gödel book awaits).  But, as an exercise in constructive procrastination I’ve just uploaded the February 2013 version of the Teach Yourself Logic Guide. Chapter 1 on The Basics is in a reasonably stable state, and I’ve only tinkered with that in small ways since the last version uploaded back in November. I’ve added another section to Chapter 3, ‘Exploring Further’.  But the big change is that I’ve started work on the new Chapter looking at some of the Big Survey Book. There’s a long list to work through — I must be mad to have taken this on! — so don’t hold your breath waiting for the entry on your favourite book. Still, it has been enjoyable to dive in, blowing the dust off some old acquaintances, and reminding myself what they get up to. So I plan to continue adding entries sporadically.

I’ve put into the Guide the entries on the classic texts by Kleene, Mendelson and Shoenfield for which I posted drafts here. As a bonus I’ve also just added an additional entry on Joel Robbin’s 1969 book Mathematical Logic: A First Course. Yes, yes, that doesn’t really come next in chronological order and it isn’t exactly a Big Book either (the main text is just 170 pages). But it does cover an interesting amount in a short space. And having been a bit grouchy about Mendelson and very grouchy about Shoenfield, I’m inclined to be rather warm about this. My summary verdict is

A different route through this material [first- and second-order logic, primitive recursive arithmetic, PA2, Gödel's theorem], Robbin’s book is accessibly written and still worth reading. Look especially at Ch. 3 for the unusually detailed story about how to build a language with a function expression for every p.r. function, and at the last chapter for how to work in PA2.

For more details, see the Guide!