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Mathematical Foundations for Mathematics

by Leon Henkin

Year of Award: 1972

Publication Information: The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 78, 1971, pp. 463-487

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About the Author: (from The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 78, (1971)) Leon Henkin received his Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1947 under the direction of Alonzo Church. His thesis included a proof of Godel’s completeness theorem for the predicate calculus which has since become the standard proof in almost every presentation of mathematical logic. In addition Professor Henkin developed the theory of cylindrification algebras which is an algebraic formulation of the theory of quantifiers. His principal work has been in the area of foundation and mathematical logic in which he has published many papers and is a recognized authority. He was awarded the Chauvenet Prize in 1964 for his paper “Are Logic and Mathematics Identical?” published in Science, 1962 (vol. 138).

Professor Henkin was Fine Instructor and Jewett Fellow at Princeton from 1947 to 1959, having spent four previous years as a mathematician in industry. In addition he was a Fulbright Scholar in Amsterdam in 1954-44, a Visiting Professor at Dartmouth in 1960-61, and a Guggenheim Fellow and member of the Institute For Advanced Study in 1961-62, and a visiting Fellow at All Souls’ College, Oxford in 1968-69. He taught at the University of Southern California and has been a member of the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley since 1953 where he has served as chairman twice. He has been Editor for the Journal of Symbolic Logic and served a three year term as President for the Association of Symbolic Logic. He has also been a member of the Council of the American Mathematical Society as well as active in CUPM. Besides his papers in foundations he is the author of “Retracing Elementary Mathematics,” Macmillan, 1962, which indicates his keen interest in the teaching of mathematics.

 

Subject classification(s): Index
Publication Date: 
Wednesday, September 24, 2008