Abstract

For this volume Professor Davis has assembled a number of the most important papers on undecidable propositions, unsolvable problems and computable functions. Several papers appear here in print for the first time: Gödel's remarks at the Princeton Bicentennial Conference on Problems in Mathematics, and Post's paper on Absolutely Unsolvable Problems. Other authors whose work is included are Church, Turing, Rosser, and Kleene. Gödel's classic "On Formally Undecidable Propositions..." appears in a new translation, and all papers have been corrected, many such corrections provided by the original authors. The editor has contributed brief notes preceding each paper, these notes are intended to clarify and otherwise expatiate upon the contents of those articles. A valuable collection both for original source material as well as historical formulations of current problems.—P. J. M.