Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears

This page links to a new series of eleven handouts for a short course given in February and March 2010 as a visiting Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury at Christchurch. These handouts aim to fill the gap between relaxed chalk-and-talk lectures on the one hand and my not-so-very-introductory Introduction to Gödel’s Theorems on the other. The series is encouragingly entitled ‘Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears‘, and updates/slightly extends a previous series published on this page.

  1. Incompleteness — The Very Idea [April 7, 2010]
  2. Incompleteness and undecidability [April 7, 2010]
  3. Two weak arithmetics [March 2, 2010]
  4. First-Order Peano Arithmetic [March 3, 2010]
  5. Primitive recursive functions [March 30, 2010]
  6. Expressing and capturing the p.r. functions [April 7, 2010]
  7. The arithmetization of syntax [April 7, 2010]
  8. The First Incompleteness Theorem [March 23, 2010]
  9. The Diagonalization Lemma, Rosser and Tarski [April 7, 2010]
  10. Introducing the Second Theorem [March 30, 2010]
  11. Löb’s Theorem and other excitements [March 31, 2010]

Or, if your prefer, here are the handouts wrapped up into one document