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Here’s the third episode (slightly updated to take account of some initial comments). Not anywhere near so exciting as the first two — but after all that arm-waving generality, we do need to get our hands dirty looking at some actual formal theories of arithmetic, mildly tedious though that is! And you really ought to know, e.g., what Robinson Arithmetic is.
As promised, Episode 2 of Gödel Without Tears (in which we prove sufficiently strong theories are undecidable and incomplete — just like that!)
As explained, I’m writing these notes as just-after-the-event handouts for weekly lectures. And each week I’ll be checking through the previous handout (and no doubt finding small corrections to make) before I give the next lecture. So here’s the latest version of Episode 1, dated 16 October.
Here, as promised, is the first of a series of lecture handouts (roughly weekly, and about twelve in all) encouragingly titled Gödel Without Tears — 1. As is the way with lecture handouts, this was dashed off at great speed, and I don’t promise that this is free of either typos or thinkos. So do please let me know of any needed corrections, or indeed of any passage which is too unclear/could do with just a little amplification. Enjoy!
Later: I’ve already replaced the first version with a slightly better one …