Math Forum / Mathematics / Mathematical Logic / October 2008

Suppose I hit someone and say, "That's just how the world works. It's
survival of the fittest." Or I refuse to help someone and say, "It's a law
of nature that people behave egoistically. It's not going to change."
Here, I have quite obviously committed a fallacy. But what should ...

Hi everyone ;
How many non-overlapping paths can a rook take from one corner to the
opposite
on an MxN chess board?

My attention has been called to a recent and frankly absurd article in
the journal Science (Douglas R. Oxley et al., "Political Attitudes
Vary with Physiological Traits," 19 September 2008: vol. 321, no.
5896, pp. 1667-1670).

OK then, the debate seems to have subsided, so maybe I could make
a summary, and perhaps add a few extra words.
The comprehensive and helpful (as usual) articles by Keith Ramsay
seem to cover most points, and suggest...

The "class of all classes" sends us scurrying for alternatives to none,
one, some, or all. We don't know how to identify this class that is the
class of all classes. Is it found among all classes, or among many, few
or none of them, or is it a class that is on its own, 'somehow' ...

Numbers are traditionally presented in base ten, or two, etc. There's no
reason, of course, why they can't be represented without a base at all
and why we can't have a unique sign for every number, like chinese
calligraphy.

My great-uncle, alchemist and mathmatician Mesmo Jones, worked with
unmanageable numbers. It is because of his inspiring legacy that I write
to you all today.
Before he departed from us Jones asked me if I could construct a graph

What makes something 'empty'? Here's a bunch of bananas. A "bunch" of
bananas is a particular type of set of bananas. I then eat all the
bananas. Which of these describes my now "empty set"?
1. The bunch is "empty".

Mathematical Logic around the world:
http://world.logic.at/

According to Michael LeGault, the author of the book of even name,
critical thinking skill have been declining on average for some time
in the USA, and this means "of course" that the critical thinking
skills of even the brightest percentiles have also declined on

A little self-referential humor for those following this link:
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=20555&view=findpost&p=133480
Sorry, resume your Usenet.
Greg

While browsing the Web, I read some papers by mathematician
Edward Nelson of Princeton.  He's had a few papers published
in the Annals of Mathematics and has worked mostly
in analysis and mathematical physics.  Then he wrote