[PRL] dijkstra anecdote

Matthias Felleisen matthias at ccs.neu.edu
Fri Dec 5 17:56:08 EST 2003


Nuprl is based and inspired by this whole idea. -- Matthias

On Friday, December 5, 2003, at 11:45 AM, David A. Herman wrote:

> More specifically, in EWD 1298, Dijkstra quotes E.T.Bell paraphrasing
> Leibniz (how's *that* for primary sources?) in his desire for
>
>> a general method in which all truths of the reason would be reduced
>> to a kind of calculation. At the same time this would be a sort of
>> universal language or script, but infinitely different from all those
>> projected hitherto; for the symbols and even the words in it would
>> direct reason; and errors, except those of fact, would be mere
>> mistakes in calculation.
>
> In other words, a formal logic calculus that would apply to all 
> reasoning about all topics ever. I remember reading somewhere that 
> Leibniz had this futurist image where, whenever people disagreed about 
> anything, they'd just write down the propositions involved in the 
> argument in the symbols of the formal language, push the symbols 
> around until they came to a conclusion, and then the argument would be 
> resolved.
>
> Dave
>
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