Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears

About GWT 

This page links to a second edition of notes originally written to accompany short lecture courses given at Cambridge and at the University of Canterbury at Christchurch NZ in 2010-11. These notes aimed to fill the gap between what can be covered in pretty relaxed chalk-and-talk lectures on the one hand and my not-so-very-introductory Introduction to Gödel’s Theorems on the other. However, I’ve tried to make them reasonably stand-alone. The series is encouragingly entitled ‘Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears’.

Here are the current titles of the now twelve episodes:

1. Incompleteness — The Very Idea
2. Incompleteness and undecidability
3. Two weak arithmetics
4. First-order Peano Arithmetic
5. Quantifier complexity
6. Primitive recursive functions
7. Expressing and capturing the primitive recursive functions
8. The arithmetization of syntax
9. The first incompleteness theorem
10. The Diagonalization Lemma, Rosser and Tarski
11. Introducing the Second Theorem
12. Curry’s Paradox, Löb’s Theorem and other excitements

How to get GWT

• The complete set of notes in A4 format can be previewed and then, if you like, downloaded here: alternatively, if you don’t have an academia.edu login, they can be downloaded here.
• The same notes but reformatted to be more readable on e.g. an iPad screen can be previewed and then, if you like, downloaded here:  alternatively you can download this version here.

(Last updated, April 16, 2016.)