Customer Reviews

Handbook of Mathematical Logic (Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics)

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The handbook is a heavy book that is definitely not for beginners. However, it is certainly a classic. It is a large scope book, which cover different area such as model theory, set theory, recursion theory, proof theory and constructive mathematics. It can be useful for student of logic and professionals. The articles in the handbook covering different areas of mathematical logic till the 70's. They differ in complexity and style. Among them it is worth mentioning Smorynski's article about Gödel's incompleteness theorems and the famous result of Paris & Harrington. In short, if you are seriously interested in Logic - buy it. Just remember that it is updated to the end of the 70's.

The chapters are very uneven, as you might expect with 34 authors. A couple are well written but most are poor -- too terse, little context, poor writing. Better to look in an appropriate graduate text.

One amazing encyclopedic book about mathematical logic (is there another type of logic?). One basic book if you want to know more about this theme after the typical pre-graduate mathematical logic course of any university. Difficult but essential.