東海大學那套 PM 羅素的幽默圖書館五四年情緣（待詳細準備再直播）

 圖書館五四年情緣

東海大學那套 PM 羅素的幽默

Classic example of Bertrand Russell's humor: 

1 + 1 = 2.

“The above proposition is occasionally useful.“

— Bertrand Russell, in a rather subtle comment after the proof that 

1 + 1 = 2, completed in Principia Mathematica, Volume II. 1st edition (1912) p. 86

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The Principia Mathematica (often abbreviated PM) is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics written by the mathematicians Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. Whitehead and Russell attempted to use symbolic logic to derive mathematics from basic axioms (1+1=2 is proved in Volume II). While PM is highly regarded by many mathematicians the book's notations are not widely used today. Nonetheless, the scholarly, historical, and philosophical interest in PM is great and ongoing. The Modern Library placed it 23rd in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the twentieth century.

English mathematician Godfrey Harold Hardy concerning Principia Mathematica: 

“I can remember Bertrand Russell telling me of a horrible dream. He was in the top floor of the University Library, about A.D. 2100. A robotic library assistant was going round the shelves carrying an enormous metal bucket, taking down books, glancing at them, restoring them to the shelves or dumping them into the bucket. At last he came to three large volumes which Russell could recognize as the last surviving copy of Principia Mathematica. He took down one of the volumes, turned over a few pages, seemed puzzled for a moment by the curious symbolism, closed the volume, balanced it in his hand and hesitated. And that was all.“

— G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology (1940), p. 83