FOM: General Intellectual Interest

[Harvey Friedman]

Shipman wrote 1:38PM 3/21/99:

>>In support of Steve's contention that F.O.M. is of great "general
>>intellectual
>>interest",
>>this week's TIME magazine names the 20 most influential minds of the 20th
>>century
>>(actually 24 people since three were teams), and the only mathematicians on
>>the list are Godel and Turing, both of whom are central to f.o.m.

Hayes 11:52AM 3/23/99 wrote:

>Maybe the question to ask is, how many mathematicians work for TIME, Inc.?
>
Maybe the question to ask is, how many logicians work for TIME, Inc.?
Maybe another question to ask is, why did Hayes ask his question?

Thayer wrote 6:08PM 3/21/99:

>I would have to read the article before believing this, since Goedel is also
>very trendy among the post-modernists (for, admittedly, the wrong reasons).
>Also Turing is closely associated with computers in many peoples' minds.
>Why were these two included?

Because of the obvious general intellectual interest of their work.