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Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth |  | Authors: Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou
Creators: Alecos Papadatos, Annie Di Donna
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Rating:  81 reviews
Sales Rank: 4373
Media: Paperback
Edition: Original
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 7 x 1
ISBN: 1596914521
Dewey Decimal Number: 192
EAN: 9781596914520
ASIN: 1596914521
Publication Date: September 29, 2009
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Book Description
This exceptional graphic novel recounts the spiritual odyssey of philosopher Bertrand Russell. In his agonized search for absolute truth, Russell crosses paths with legendary thinkers like Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert, and Kurt Gödel, and finds a passionate student in the great Ludwig Wittgenstein. But his most ambitious goal--to establish unshakable logical foundations of mathematics--continues to loom before him. Through love and hate, peace and war, Russell persists in the dogged mission that threatens to claim both his career and his personal happiness, finally driving him to the brink of insanity.
Take a Look Inside
The creators of Logicomix introduce us to Bertrand Russell in 1939 during one of his public lectures. Russell explores the question, "What is logic?" by telling the story of "one of [logic’s] most ardent fans"--himself. The panels that follow (click each image to see the full page) reimagine the life of a brilliant young man with a passion for mathematics.
Product Description
An innovative, dramatic graphic novel about the treacherous pursuit of the foundations of mathematics. This exceptional graphic novel recounts the spiritual odyssey of philosopher Bertrand Russell. In his agonized search for absolute truth, Russell crosses paths with legendary thinkers like Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert, and Kurt Gödel, and finds a passionate student in the great Ludwig Wittgenstein. But his most ambitious goal—to establish unshakable logical foundations of mathematics—continues to loom before him. Through love and hate, peace and war, Russell persists in the dogged mission that threatens to claim both his career and his personal happiness, finally driving him to the brink of insanity. This story is at the same time a historical novel and an accessible explication of some of the biggest ideas of mathematics and modern philosophy. With rich characterizations and expressive, atmospheric artwork, the book spins the pursuit of these ideas into a highly satisfying tale. Probing and ingeniously layered, the book throws light on Russell’s inner struggles while setting them in the context of the timeless questions he spent his life trying to answer. At its heart, Logicomix is a story about the conflict between an ideal rationality and the unchanging, flawed fabric of reality. Apostolos Doxiadis studied mathematics at Columbia University. His international bestseller Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture spearheaded the impressive entrance of mathematics into the world of storytelling. Apart from his work in fiction, Apostolos has also worked in film and theater and is an internationally recognized expert on the relationship of mathematics to narrative. Christos H. Papadimitriou is C . Lester Hogan professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He was won numerous international awards for his pioneering work in computational complexity and algorithmic game theory. Christos is the author of the novel Turing: A Novel about Computation. Alecos Papadatos worked for over twenty years in film animation in France and Greece. In 1997, he became a cartoonist for the major Athens daily To Vima. He lives in Athens with his wife, Annie Di Donna, and their two children. Annie Di Donna studied graphic arts and painting in France and has worked as animator on many productions, among them Babar and Tintin. Since 1991, she has been running an animation studio with her husband, Alecos Papadatos. This innovative graphic novel is based on the early life of the brilliant philosopher Bertrand Russell and impassioned pursuit of truth. Haunted by family secrets and unable to quell his youthful curiosity, Russell became obsessed with a Promethean goal: to establish the logical foundation of all mathematics. In his agonized search for absolute truth, Russell crosses paths with legendary thinkers like Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert, and Kurt Gödel, and finds a passionate student in the great Ludwig Wittgenstein. But the object of his defining quest continues to loom before him. Through love and hate, peace and war, Russell persists in the dogged mission that threatens to claim both his career and his personal happiness, finally driving him to the brink of insanity. Logicomix is at the same time a historical novel and an accessible explication to some of the biggest ideas of mathematics and modern philosophy. With rich characterizations and expressive, atmospheric artwork, the book spins the pursuit of these ideas into a captivating tale. Probing and ingeniously layered, the book throws light on Russell’s inner struggles while setting them in the context of the timeless questions he spent his life trying to answer. At its heart, Logicomix is a story about the conflict between an ideal rationality and the unchanging, flawed fabric of reality. "Well, this is unexpected—a comic book about the quest for logical certainty in mathematics. The story spans the decades from the late 19th century to World War II, a period when the nature of mathematical truth was being furiously debated. The stellar cast, headed up by Bertrand Russell, includes the greatest philosophers, logicians and mathematicians of the era, along with sundry wives and mistresses, plus a couple of homicidal maniacs, an apocryphal barber and Adolf Hitler . . . All of this is presented with real graphic verve. (Even though I’m a text guy, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the witty drawings.) To ginger up the story, the authors often deviate from the actual facts. As they admit in an afterword, Russell never met Frege or Cantor in the flesh. Nor, I am fairly certain, did he ever say to Whitehead, 'I’m tired, man.' (You expect Whitehead to reply, 'Me too, bro!') We are assured, however, that no liberties have been taken with 'the great adventure of ideas.' And for the most part the ideas are conveyed accurately, and with delightful simplicity."—Jim Holt, The New York Times Book Review
"Some superheroes leap tall buildings with a single bound. Others catch thieves just like flies. But the ones in Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou’s graphic novel just think—really hard—about an incredibly difficult dilemma. And they get nowhere. Like all the best superheroes, they are deeply, fascinatingly flawed characters. First among them is Bertrand Russell, the English philosopher whose life story this is—at least as far as 1939. Also present are his fellow pioneers in the philosophy of mathematics: Alfred North Whitehead, with whom Russell sought, in the years before the first world war, to provide a logically rigorous, good-for-all-time foundation for mathematics; Ludwig Wittgenstein, the austere Austrian who argued that Russell’s project was misconceived; Kurt Gödel, Wittgenstein’s compatriot, who proved that it was; and assorted other pin-ups of higher mathematics—Cantor, Poincaré, Hilbert. This sounds as if it could be terribly dry—the quest for mathematical foundations is an abstruse one, far removed from mankind’s more pressing concerns. But an intellectual passion is still a passion, and writers Doxiadis and Papadimitriou succeed in bringing out the humanity in their story. Logicomix exposes the roots of Russell’s need for certainty—a troubled childhood, what else?—and tracks the collateral damage it caused in his and his loved ones’ lives. The book is a visual treat as well, thanks to Alecos Papadatos and Annie di Donna’s crisp, richly coloured drawings. The story is told by Russell himself, in the course of a lecture on 'the role of logic in human affairs' delivered at a US university just after the outbreak of the second world war. A group of demonstrators, demanding that the US stay out of the conflict, want Russell—jailed for his pacifist beliefs in the first world war—to support their stance. Russell acknowledges their concern but points out that they must be guided by reason—and to explain what this is, he embarks on the intellectual autobiography that is the book’s core. It’s a yarn as rich in dark family secrets, forbidden love and lurking madness as a teenage vampire soap. At the same time, it gives due weight to the horrors of 20th-century Europe and—while mercifully free of equations—cleaves to the essential intellectual drama. Not that that tale is lacking in gothically outré details: we learn, for example, that it took Russell and Whitehead 362 Principia pages to prove that 1 + 1 = 2. Doxiadis and Papadimitriou freely admit to inventing convenient meetings between protagonists who, in some cases, never actually met. They insist, though, that they have taken no liberties 'with the content of the great adventure of ideas that forms our main plot, [or] with the philosophical, existential and emotional struggles which are inextricably bound with it.' The authors themselves debate questions that may be a breeze compared with the ones Russell wrestled with, but they are still far from easy. Logicomix is a wonderfully persuasive answer."—Neville Hawcock, Financial Times (UK)
"At the heart of Logicomix stands Sir Bertrand Russell, a man determined to find a way of arriving at absolutely right answers. It's a tale within a tale, as the two authors and two graphic artists ardently pursue their own search for truth and appear as characters in the book. As one of them assures us, this won't be 'your typical, usual comic book.' Their quest takes shape and revolves around a lecture given by Russell at an unnamed American university in 1939, a lecture that is really, as he himself tells us, the story of his life and of his pursuit of real logical truth. With Proustian ambition and exhilarating artwork, Logicomix's search for truth encounters head-on the horrors of the Second World War and the agonizing question of whether war can ever be the right choice. Russell himself had to confront that question personally: he endured six months in jail for his pacifism. Russell was determined to find the perfect logical method for solving all problems and attempted to remold human nature in his experimental school at Beacon Hill. Despite repeated failures, Russell never stopped being 'a sad little boy desperately seeking ways out of the deadly vortex of uncertainty.' The book is a visual banquet chronicling Russell's lifelong pursuit of 'certainty in total rationality.' As Logic and Mathematics, the last bastions of certainty, fail him, and ...
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 81
 Interesting and very different July 26, 2009
P. Wung (Tipp City, OH USA)
74 out of 76 found this review helpful
I am a big fan of Doxiadi's book on Goldbach conjecture :Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession.
This book is very different, in manifold ways. The previous book was a novel wrapped around a mathematical idea. In the process of telling a story, Doxiadis explained the mathematical problem. It was pretty straight forward - not the problem, the approach. But this book is a tutorial on logic, a historical review of the most dramatic development in logic, a chronological synopsis of how higher mathematics, philosophy and logic became intertwined and coupled. AND, the book did this in a comic book format. The approach is, of course very ambitious. The question then is: was it successful?
This may seem cowardly, but it does echo the book's conclusion: it is really up to the reader.
The book poses the question early on: pure logic will lead a rational person to a right conclusion to a difficult moral problem, in this case, whether Britain should enter into WWII against Hitler. The entire book then is predicated upon the literary mechanism to introduce a wide spanning discourse on the development of 20th century logic, the narrative is taken through all of its twists and turns by the narrator in the form of Bertrand Russell, with occasional self referencing vignettes of the writing and drawing teams of this book.
Russell is a natural choice, and his life in the higher altitude work in philosophy and mathematics really fits in nicely with the history of the logical arguments. His work, Principia Mathematica - Volume One with Lord Whitehead was also seminal in much of the breakthroughs that followed. The narratives are carried on through conversations with some of the most colorful people in the European philosophical, and mathematical intelligentsia: Frege, Cantor, Wittgenstein, the Vienna, Hilbert, Poincare, and Godels. But, relying on the words of these heavy hitters to carry through the dense and complex ideas is a difficult proposition for the reader because the heavy hitters tend also to have heavy and dense writings, so the authors have thoughtfully provided brief respites featuring the comic book counterparts of the actual writers and animators working on the book, and a welcome respite it is, this mechanism saved the readers from some heavy duty mental headaches and gnashing of teeth.
So, after all that work, we return to the original question: were the authors successful? I think they were, by and large, but once again, it is up to the reader to decide because the depths to which the message is delivered depends very much on the reader's depths of understanding of the problems described and the reader's familiarity with the literature. The tutorial on the philosophical works, particularly the Principia and Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Routledge Classics) was very good, the authors did manage to explain some very important and dense material very cleanly and concisely. As for resolving the central problem, actually the argument used to present all this philosophy was not so successful, but that is the nature of a philosophical discourse: most of them end without a black and white conclusion.
The book is very ambitious, it attacked a very large and complex piece of human thought by using a very untraditional means - the format nostalgically brought back to the days when I was religiously reading Classic Illustrated comic books when I was in my youth- it did a magnificent job of relaying the author's intent.
News flash: Tremors shake area July 25, 2009
Dick Johnson (Oklahoma USA)
25 out of 29 found this review helpful
Dateline Wales: Unusual seismic activity has been reported in the mountains. Reports have been received of areas seemingly 'turning over'. One eye-witness remarked about it being connected with Bertrand Russell's ashes being scattered in the mountains nearly 40 years ago and a new book being released about him - and it's a Comic Book!
The thought of Bertrand Russell and comic book being used together is strange. I am using "comic book" because the authors continually used it. It was only in the end notes that "graphic novel" was used by them.
There was a very good balance between the art and the text - neither overshadowed the other. The interludes to advance the story were also well done.
Though some fiction was employed, this is a very well developed thumb-nail sketch of Russell and his life until the start of World War II. The inclusion of others active in the fields of logic, mathematics and philosophy helped to display both those who influenced Russell and those whose works were influenced by him.
I was fortunate to have 'discovered' Russell, through his "History of Western Philosophy", while he was still alive (he died in 1970). Though his appearances on television were few, it was always fascinating to see anything by him or about him. Having this book develop through one of his public appearances was a clever touch that worked well.
Like most, I didn't agree with him on everything, and I certainly didn't understand a lot that he wrote. I did, though, recognize genius, and the haggling was over the details. Both his professional life and personal life were filled with controversy.
He was one of those who could be described as "bigger than life". Though few today may even recognize his name, he had a significant influence in the first half of the twentieth century; and an impact on thought that continues to today.
If you have an interest in logic, math or philosophy, this is an excellent introduction to a fascinating man and his work. If not, you will probably not like this book. While it doesn't require in-depth knowledge (much is explained), some familiarity with the subject will add to your enjoyment.
This was an impressive method of presenting this material. Hopefully, the creators will do more in the same manner.
go Bertrand (Russell)! October 27, 2009
Massimo Pigliucci (New York City)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
It is hard to imagine that the quest for the ultimate logical foundations of mathematics would make for a good graphic novel, but the authors and artists of Logicomix clearly pulled it off! I may be partial here because Bertrand Russell - the main character of the story - is one of my all-time favorite philosophers, but the fact is that the book is historically accurate (as much as a novel needs to be, anyhow), beautifully drawn, and intellectually rigorous (again, by a novel's standard - this is no logics textbook). Some of the minor characters are among the most influential philosophers and logicians of the 20th century, from Frege to Wittgenstein to Godel. What makes them interesting is that their passions show through the work, both in terms of their human frailties and of their almost mad pursuit for logic. Indeed, madness plays a constant background role throughout the story, with a not so subtle investigation of its link to genius, and to mathematics and logic in particular. The authors do a very good job at explaining the basic concepts for the reader with no background knowledge of logic or philosophy through the sometime a bit annoying, but ultimately effective, device of featuring themselves as occasional commentators in the story. Of course, this means that the novel is partly self-referential, with all the obvious implications in terms of logical paradoxes...
A Lovely Combination of Art and Mathematics, with Fun Thrown In October 4, 2009
Herbert Gintis (Northampton, MA USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Logicomix is a 335 page, beautifully produced and artfully drawn, comic book. Unlike most comic books, the heroes are several of the most prominent mathematicians and logicians of the twentieth century. Also unlike most comics, the subject matter is not fantastic and juvenile, but rather tells the story of the quest for the axiomatization of logic and mathematics in the first half of the twentieth century. The period is passionately interesting because late-nineteenth century innovations, especially Cantor's set theory, opened new vistas for the working mathematician, but the foundations of the new ideas was more than a little shaky.
Cantor himself had proved that the power set of any set is strictly larger than the set, which means that the power set of the set of all sets is larger than the set of all sets! This is of course absurd. Bertrand Russell later located a fatal flaw in Frege's axiomatization of logic, famously known as Russell's Paradox. Cantor's paradox, and the related Burali-Forti paradox, are quite simple to expound, but not simple enough for the authors, but their exposition of Russell's paradox is well done. Somewhat later Goedel proved that any system complex enough to included the elementary axioms of arithmetic were such that there are sentences that are true but cannot be proved within the system. Moreover, he showed that if a system of sufficient complexity could prove its own consistency, then it must be inconsistent! Logicomix describes Goedel's incompleteness theorem, but does not explain the difference between `provable' and `true.'
Russell's paradox is absurdly simple. Some sets are members of themselves---e.g., the set of abstract ideas is an abstract idea. Some sets are not---e.g., the set of all bluebirds is not a bluebird. What about the set S of all sets that are not members of themselves. If S is a member of itself, then it is not in S, so it is not a member of itself, a contradiction. Thus S is not a member of itself, from which we conclude that it is a member of itself. Thus S both is and is not a member of itself so the logic leading to this result is inconsistent, and hence can `prove' anything.
The story line is a biographical account of Bertrand Russell's quest for a firm foundation for logic, and a reduction of mathematics to logic. This led to the monumental Principia Mathematica, coauthored with Alfred Whitehead. This book made Russell even more famous than his paradox, but it was not well received, and most logicians do not believe it solves the problems it poses. Moreover, there was an alternative developed by Zermelo and Fraenkel that appears to have solved the problem, in the sense that now, a century later, no one has found an inconsistency in the Zermelo-Frankel system.
The general problem can be easily stated. Frege had an axiom that says that if P is any predicate, then the ensemble of all things that satisfy P form a set. Since sets can be elements of other sets in Frege's system, this led directly to the various antinomies described above. Russell and Whitehead developed a theory layered types to circumvent this problem, but Zermelo-Fraenkel used the simpler notion that predicates define only subsets of already constructed sets. Then, follow a suggestion of von Neumann, we can build the whole hierarchy of sets from the empty set using a few simple axioms.
The authors clearly convey the beauty of the mathematics and the passion and dedication of the mathematicians that produce it. I was totally enchanted by the book, but I am not sure how it will be received by those for whom the math is unknown or uninteresting.
I came away from this book wondering why the comic format is not used more frequently to convey serious ideas. I mean really serious ideas. If it is math, it should have boxes with the equations in their normal form, and proofs in their normal form. But I think students would really appreciate the visual presentation that the comic format makes possible.
A Masterpiece! Compelling, Fast-Paced, Consequential! July 26, 2009
Scott Allen (New York)
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
As an avid reader of all genres: sci-fi, economics, contemporary and classic fiction, fantasy, graphic novels, even science, I never thought I could be surprised by a book. Logicomix has done it. This is a genre-shattering work of genius.
Logicomix is a graphic novel of the story of Bertrand Russell's pursuit of the "foundations of mathematics." The authors (math geniuses in their own right) explore how the intellectual giants of the 20th century struggled with the fundamental questions of math, logic, and philosophy.
Before reading this book, I only knew Bertrand Russell through his dry "History of Western Philosophy." Logicomix creates a semi-fictional account of his efforts to find out if mathematics can be absolutely logical, provable, consistent, "real."
This book gives us brief introductions to Boolean logic, the seminal Mathematica Principia, Euclidean geometry, and philosophy. It's the first time in which I've had to put a graphic novel down to think about the implications of what I'd just read.
The authors are ambitious, asking many questions such as "does pure logical thought have to lead to madness?" "Why is there a thin line between mathematical genius and insanity?" Some of the questions are very timely with the current Wall Street meltdown due to over-reliance on mathematical models. "What is the limit of human understanding? What is the meaning of infinity?"
Russell pursues the hope that everything in mathematics and the physical world can ultimately be explained by rational thought, by pure logic. We still don't know if math is absolutely true and logical. Pure logic powers our computers, running millions of them successfully around the world. So it seems obvious that math is consistent. Russell, with his paradox, concludes that his quest for absolute truth is a failure, and that even mathematics cannot be considered "complete" and logical.
The authors reach their ultimate conclusion on page 296 when Russell says:
"Reflect on this please: if even in Logic and Mathematics, the paragons of certainty, we cannot have perfect assurances of Reason, then even less can this be achieved in the messy business of human affairs - either private, or public!"
He continues:
"Even now, I believe that Logic is a most powerful tool... as far as it goes. When it comes to talking about human life, it certainly isn't!... All the facts of science are not enough to understand the world's meaning....Listen: take my story as a cautionary tale...it tells you that applying formulas is not good enough - not, that is, when you're faced with really hard problems."
Logicomix comes to a dramatic finale with the Greek tragedy Orestia, adding even more explanation to Russell's (and mankind as a whole's) quest for perfect rational thought.
Don't let the subject matter of Logicomix scare you away! Of course, if I was a college or high school math instructor, I would have all of my students read this book on day one of the course. But I would also hand this book to a poet, a musician, an actress, or a stock analyst to read. Logicomix succeeds on so many levels that I believe it will be universally enjoyed by a much wider audience than is readily apparent.
Logicomix is a masterpiece, and in the top 20 of the 3000 or so books I've read. Of all the graphic novels I've ever read, there are now TWO that stand together, above them all: Watchmen and Logicomix.
The authors hint within Logicomix that their next book may be the history of the computer. I can only hope they are busy at work on that project today.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 81
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