Logic List Mailing Archive

Artikel ueber die Geschichte der Logik an der ETH

Gebhard Fuhrken has translated this interesting story written by a
journalist from Jerusalem concerning logic at ETH, into English. 

*****************************************

End of a tradition of reasoning 
Last meeting of the Logic seminar at the ETH Zurich

On July 2, with a lecture about "The splendor and misery of Logic", at the
ETH Zurich a scientific tradition comes to an end. The following
contribution describes the rise and history of the Zurich Logic seminar.

In the year 1934 said circumstances in Germany lead to good fortune for
Zurich. The mathematician Paul Bernays had to move from Gottingen to the
city on the Limat. Bernays, because of his belonging to the Jewish
religion, was robbed of a modest position at the world famous institution;
the reputation of being a brilliant logician preceded him. Born as a Swiss
in London in 1888, he studied first engineering then mathematics in
Berlin. The young doctor got his venia legendi [a higher doctorate] in
Zurich and taught for five years as Privatdozent [unpaid assistant
professor] at the University.

One day the famous mathematician Daivd Hilbert visited Zurich. During a
walk on Mount Zurich he became aware of the talented Bernays and offered
him a position in Gottingen. Though the Privatdozent was already in his
thirties, he did not consider it beneath himself to move as assistant to
the great Hilbert to Gottingen. The extremely fruitful collaboration
culminated in the two volumes "Foundations of Mathematics", in which the
authors set out to build the edifice of mathematics completely on symbolic
logic.

But on the horizon gathered already the brown clouds of the Nazi regime.
The mathematical teaching staff in Gottingen, who to a good part consisted
of men (and a single woman Emmy Noether) of Jewish faith, were chased away
by Hitler's henchmen. Hilbert was dejected about the departure of Bernays,
as about that of all other Jewish colleagues.

*The prime of logic in Switzerland*

Gottingens' loss was Zurich's gain, since the arrival of Bernays rang in
the beginning of the flowering of logic in Switzerland. At the ETH, he was
first a lecturer, then an Extraordinarius (non-line item professor) with
half a teaching load. Together with Ferdinand Gonseth and George Polya he
conducted for the first time, during the winter semester 1939/40, a logic
seminar, which he then would lead for decades. Attendance at the seminar
was free. Bernays, not being employed by the university full-time, could
have asked the participants for a fee, but then most likely not many
students would have come.

Even after his retirement in 1958, on into this high age, Bernays
continued to attend this especially lively seminar. A former student
remembered, how he once stood at the blackboard in order to present a
recently published article. Hardly had he begun his presentation when
Bernays already asked a first question. This lead to a debate, until
Professor Hans Lauchli stepped to the board, and, with chalk in hand,
tried to solve the problem. Whereupon Professor Ernst Specker ran to the
board to present another version.

Now Bernays wanted to give more weight to his point of view, pressed
forward and the conversation became more and more heated. The poor
student, today a respected professor at the University of Lausanne, could
barely, with effort, finish his own presentation.

Bernays died 25 years ago, on September 18, 1977. Afterwards the tradition
of logic was kept up by Bernay's former colleagues Lauchli and Specker.
When Specker retired in 1987, he was urged by the assistants and students
to continue the seminar, which he did for 15 more years. Several
participants of the seminar are today professors at universities the whole
world over.

*Classical and many-valued logic*

But with the academic year 2001/2002 this era comes to an end. 68 years
after the arrival of Bernays in Zurich the logic seminar will be conducted
for the last time. Lauchli's and Specker's chairs for Logic and
Foundational Research at the ETH have been filled in the meantime
differently. Thus there is, at the ETH, for some time now no longer
research in the area of logic and foundation of mathematics.  In the
future, the desire for learning on part of students can be satisfied only
by introductory courses in the division of computer science and by guest
lectures.

One of the last meetings of the seminar was conducted under the title
"four logics". There is, besides classical logic, for example also
many-valued logic, which admits besides a proposition and its opposite
still other possibilities. While e.g. in classical logic the opposite of
"good" is "bad", in many-valued logic there are between black and white
also tones of gray.

At the mentioned meeting two [female] students from the Italian part of
our country presented results of intuitionistic logic. This logic
distinguishes itself by the fact that, in contrast to classical logic, the
maxim "tertium non datur" (The proposition of the excluded third) is not
valid. That means that a proposition does not necessarily have to be true
or false. The intuitionistic logic admits also the evaluation "no
comment". About these and similar niceties the two [female] students
reported. Perfectly choreographed they alternately wrote formulas at the
board, which, after a while, only reminded of Egyptian hieroglyphs. It
soon went over the head of a non-specialist's, but then Specker injected
here and there a remark, and the situation became clarified. And if at the
end for certain participants still not everything was perspicuous, the
discussion could be continued at the equally important "Nachseminar" [post
seminar] in the the restaurant Sonnegg.

George Szpiro, Jerusalem

On Tuesday, Juli 2 at a quarter past five Professor Ernst Specker will
give a lecture in the Aula [main hall] of the ETH (Main Building G 60)
about "The Splendor and misery of logic".