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(1979) Selected papers in logic and foundations, didactics, economics, Dordrecht, Springer.
During a visit to Poland in the summer of 1929, I learned about the parenthesis-free notation that Łukasiewicz had just devised for logic — a simple but fascinating idea. Today this symbolism is widely known and its variations are even utilized in mass-produced calculators; but at that time, probably no other Western mathematician was acquainted with it. So upon my return to Vienna, I spoke about it before my Mathematics Colloquium as well as in the Circle. The latter, I felt, should be informed of Łukasiewicz" idea since in the Tractatus Wittgenstein had emphasized how significant was "the apparently unimportant fact that the logical pseudo-relations such as ∨ and ⊃ (for or and implies) require parentheses — in contrast to the real relations." Łukasiewicz" notation demonstrated that the alleged requirement did not exist.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-9347-1_5
Full citation:
Menger, K. (1979). Meaningfulness and structure, in Selected papers in logic and foundations, didactics, economics, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 61-67.
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