Principia Mathematica
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Principia Mathematica was written by English academics Bertrand Russel and Alfred North Whitehead, and first published in 1910. The book consists almost entirely of propositional calculus, a system of symbols describing logical statements.
It was not a bestseller, and while not reccomended as light reading, it is notable as a possible model for the time travellers' manual of grammar mentioned in the Hitchhiker trilogy, which, you will recall, was blank after the initial chapters. A number of works could lay claim to the title, but Principia Mathematica has a special plea: most editions appearing after the initial publication include only the first fifty six chapters.
Russel revised the book, removing much of the propositional calculus, and published it with the snappier title, The Principles of Mathematics; but again sales were slow. Perhaps we will never know what he was trying to say.
It was not a bestseller, and while not reccomended as light reading, it is notable as a possible model for the time travellers' manual of grammar mentioned in the Hitchhiker trilogy, which, you will recall, was blank after the initial chapters. A number of works could lay claim to the title, but Principia Mathematica has a special plea: most editions appearing after the initial publication include only the first fifty six chapters.
Russel revised the book, removing much of the propositional calculus, and published it with the snappier title, The Principles of Mathematics; but again sales were slow. Perhaps we will never know what he was trying to say.
