To Mock a Mockingbird [Paperback]

Raymond Smullyan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2000

In this entertaining and challenging collection of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan - author of Forever Undecided - continues to delight and astonish us with his gift for making available, in the thoroughly pleasurable form of puzzles, some of the most important mathematical thinking of our time. In the first part of the book, he transports us once again to that wonderful realm where knights, knaves, twin sisters, quadruplet brothers, gods, demons, and mortals either always tell the truth or always lie, and where truth-seekers are set a variety of fascinating problems. The section culminates in an enchanting and profound metapuzzle in which Inspector Craig of Scotland Yard gets involved in a search for the Fountain of Youth on the Island of Knights and Knaves. In the second part of To Mock a Mockingbird, we accompany the Inspector on a summer-long adventure into the field of combinatory logic (a branch of logic that plays an important role in computer science and artificial intelligence). His adventure, which includes enchanted forests, talking birds, bird sociologists, and a classic quest, provides for us along the way the pleasure of solving puzzles of increasing complexity until we reach the Master Forest and - thanks to Godel's famous theorem - the final revelation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Raymond Smullyan, a well-known mathematician and logician and the author of many books, is Oscar Ewing Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University and Professor Emeritus of the City University of New York-Lehman College and Graduate Center.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (November 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192801422
• ISBN-13: 978-0192801425
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #14 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Quizzes

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sweet and Simple introduction to functional programming., May 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: To Mock a Mockingbird (Paperback)

This book by Smullyan is different from his other puzzle books,
in that it is fully about puzzles from functional programming.

The birds are functors that compute on strings.
Self reference comes into play when the Mockingbird
shows you what a fixpoint computation is.

The phethora of birds may confuse you if you try to read it
fast or skip solving the puzzles. The problems are not
easy, it took the mighty mathematical titans - Turing and Godel
to provide the initial solutions. If you are stuck,
Smullyan provides all the solutions at the chapter end.
It requires concentration and remembering previous tricks,
something akin to solving Rubik's cube without a solution guide.
You will love it if you love chess problems.

In the end you will come out with a deep sense of
accomplishment having understood the proof of Godel's
incompleteness theorems, Combinatorial Logic, and Functional
programming, when all you thought you were doing was figuring
out puzzles of birds.

Hard to find book, but its worth its weight in gold.
The other book to complement this is "Forever Undecided,
a puzzle guide to Godel" by Smullyan, it uses Modal logic
puzzles to motivate you, but the end result is the same.

Remember Smullyan is Professor of mathematics and logic,
he is classy and witty like Knuth. Don't confuse him
with the popular mathematical journalists.

- Mosh http://www.cs.albany.edu/~mosh

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars To Mock a Mockingbird, June 22, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: To Mock a Mockingbird and Other Logic Puzzles: Including an Amazing Adventure in Combinatory Logic (Hardcover)

After a disconnected array of logic puzzles at the beginning, the author embarks on an introductory course to combinatory logic. Given a little application (if you're like me you will need a pen and paper), you can get to grips with some of the fundamentals of mathematical logic with relatively little background. This is pretty astonishing.

The worst feature of the book is the fact that only one (unintuitive) model for the theory is provided. Discussion of the significance of the results obtained is not particularly useful - probably anyone smart enough to solve the puzzles will not find anything there that they couldn't figure out for themselves.

But nevermind: if you want a good introductory course in combinatory logic (or you want to understand (a version of) Godel's 1st incompleteness theorem), then I would recommend this book for you!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An awesome book, March 19, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: To Mock a Mockingbird and Other Logic Puzzles: Including an Amazing Adventure in Combinatory Logic (Hardcover)

A reviewer of one of Smullyan's other works called him "a national treasure" and I have to agree. To Mock a Mockingbird is a fantastic book -- whether you're looking for fun logic puzzles or a lighter look at formal logic theory. This book is better than any college textbook, and right up there with any of Martin Gardner's best works. Highly recommended.