Mathematician:George Spencer-Brown

Mathematician

British mathematician, philosopher and crackpot best known for his book Laws of Form.

Made claims to the proofs of some famous hypotheses, but these were never validated.

Nationality

British

History

• Born: 2 April 1923 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England
• Died: 25 August 2016

Publications

• 1957: Probability and Scientific Inference

• 1969: Laws of Form
  • 1972: Laws of Form, American ed.

• 17 December 1976: Claim of Proof to Four Colour Theorem (Letter to the Editor of Nature)

Notable Quotes

A theorem is no more proved by logic and computation than a sonnet is written by grammar and rhetoric, or that a sonata is composed by harmony and counterpoint, or a picture painted by balance and perspective. Logic and computation, grammar and rhetoric, harmony and counterpoint, balance and perspective, can be seen in the work after it is created, but these forms are, in the final analysis, parasitic on, they have no existence apart from, the creativity of the work itself. Thus the relation of logic to mathematics is seen to be that of an applied science to its pure ground, and all applied science is seen as drawing sustenance from a process of creation with which it can combine to give structure, but which it cannot appropriate.

Sources

• 1993: Richard J. Trudeau: Introduction to Graph Theory ... (previous) ... (next): $1$. Pure Mathematics: Why study pure mathematics?