The Game Of Logic By Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll the author of the world famous Alice in Wonderland is well known even today for his fiction, but his tenure as professor of mathematics at Oxford university is less well known as is his love of logic problems. Carroll was a mathematician at heart; he deeply loved and was fascinated by the subject. At first it may seem odd that a creator of such nonsensical writings would have such an interest in this area, although the logic involved in maths appealed to the very clever mind of Dodgson, and logical oddities are at the root of a lot of the wit in the Alice books.

This Game requires nine Counters--four of one colour and five of another: say four red and five grey. Besides the nine Counters, it also requires one Player, AT LEAST. I am not aware of any Game that can be played with LESS than this number: while there are several that require MORE: take Cricket, for instance, which requires twenty-two. How much easier it is, when you want to play a Game, to find ONE Player than twenty-two. At the same time, though one Player is enough, a good deal more amusement may be got by two working at it together, and correcting each other's mistakes. A second advantage, possessed by this Game, is that, besides being an endless source of amusement (the number of arguments, that may be worked by it, being infinite), it will give the Players a little instruction as well. But is there any great harm in THAT, so long as you get plenty of amusement

Reproduction of the original: The Game of Logic by Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll wrote several mathematics books. He was mainly interested in using logic diagrams as a pedagogical tool. Symbolic Logic, first published in 1896, contains literally dozens of puzzles. He believed heartily that children would enjoy learning mathematics if they could be enticed by amusing stories and puzzles. The Game of Logic, published in 1897, was intended to teach logic to children. His "game" consisted of a card with two diagrams, together with a set of counters, five grey and four red. The two diagrams were Carroll's version of a two-set and a three-set Venn diagram. A manuscript of a brief lecture Lewis Carroll once gave, Feeding the Mind, discusses the importance of not only feeding the body, but also the mind. Carroll wittily puts forth connections between the diet of the body and mind, and gives helpful tips on how to best digest knowledge in the brain. This essay was originally printed in 1907. Lewis Carroll ((1832-1898) is best known as the author of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. His real name was Charles Dodgson. His father, the Reverend Charles Dodgson, instilled in his son a love of mathematics from an early age. Lewis studied at Oxford, and later taught there as a Mathematics Lecturer.

A lively and engaging look at logic puzzles and their role in mathematics, philosophy, and recreation Logic puzzles were first introduced to the public by Lewis Carroll in the late nineteenth century and have been popular ever since. Games like Sudoku and Mastermind are fun and engrossing recreational activities, but they also share deep foundations in mathematical logic and are worthy of serious intellectual inquiry. Games for Your Mind explores the history and future of logic puzzles while enabling you to test your skill against a variety of puzzles yourself. In this informative and entertaining book, Jason Rosenhouse begins by introducing readers to logic and logic puzzles and goes on to reveal the rich history of these puzzles. He shows how Carroll's puzzles presented Aristotelian logic as a game for children, yet also informed his scholarly work on logic. He reveals how another pioneer of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan, drew on classic puzzles about liars and truthtellers to illustrate Kurt Gödel's theorems and illuminate profound questions in mathematical logic. Rosenhouse then presents a new vision for the future of logic puzzles based on nonclassical logic, which is used today in computer science and automated reasoning to manipulate large and sometimes contradictory sets of data. Featuring a wealth of sample puzzles ranging from simple to extremely challenging, this lively and engaging book brings together many of the most ingenious puzzles ever devised, including the "Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever," metapuzzles, paradoxes, and the logic puzzles in detective stories.

Forty-two perplexing puzzles by creator of Alice in Wonderland: Cakes in a Row, Looking-Glass Time, Arithmetical Croquet, Diverse Doublets, and others. Hints, solutions. Illustrations by John Tenniel.