Logicomix

I could be better at writing about, or ranting about, books I read, especially when they are connected to science, teaching or research.
The other day I read a comic book called Logicomix. This may seem unserious, and no doubt, comics and comic books are considered more childish in Norway, than in, say, UK or US. At least that is my impression. As a young collector I have always been into comics and even in this country there have been, at least a few, to share the interest with.

Picture from the Logicomix website

This book is a kind of drawn version of a lecture given by Bertrand Russell, about his life, philosophies and pursue of absolute truth. What on earth (or rather, elsewhere..) could we know, and how can we be sure? What can we be absolute sure of? The excuse for the lecture is a contemporary debate on whether US should join in the war on the English side. How can we be sure we do the absolute correct thing? In this book, we get to know Russell, his life and story, his more or less strange love stories, some of his paradoxes and contradictions, as well as a number of other mathematicians and philosophers. Frege, Wittgenstein, Cantor and Hilbert all show their faces.
This is a reading experience a little bit on the side, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone with the slightest of interest for either mathematics, history, logics or philosophy. Or comic books 🙂

The book has its own website, and you can get some tastes of it there. It can also be ordered (free shipping) on play.com – and cheap! Just what the cheap researcher ordered.

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Some links just to show I didn’t forget you…

Just a quick “I’m still here”-post…

Thought I’d share three cool posts I found today.

Wired.com doesn’t need any introduction I guess. Sometimes they have science related posts too good to miss, like this one: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/is-the-launch-speed-in-angry-birds-constant/

Lifehacker has grown to be one of my favorite Google Reader items, and I usually find interesting posts here every day. It’s noe necessarily science or math related, but they are often quite geeky, and well worth a look. Here’s a tip on using pencils if you find yourself playing yatzy without enough die. http://lifehacker.com/5804898/use-a-pencil-as-a-6+sided-die

Google sketchup is a cool freeware effort that also can be used in math education. I got this tip from the Math and Multimedia blog: http://mathandmultimedia.com/2011/05/25/intersection-of-planes-google-sketchup/