Definition:Mathematical Logic/Historical Note

Historical Note on Mathematical Logic

The roots of mathematical logic originate with the work of George Boole, who first made an attempt to formally define the rules of logic in mathematical terms.

Its development as a serious discipline was directly inspired by Hilbert's program, as an attempt to create a consistent and complete set of axioms that would render mathematics completely rigorous.

This did not go the way David Hilbert had planned, as Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems proved that there were always going to true statements in mathematics which could never be proved.

Sources

• 1951: Willard Van Orman Quine: Mathematical Logic (revised ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Introduction
• 1993: M. Ben-Ari: Mathematical Logic for Computer Science ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $1$: Introduction: $\S 1.1$: The origins of mathematical logic