Emil Leon Post

Emil Leon Post (February 11 1897 - April 21 1954) was a Polish-American mathematician and logician. He was born in a Jewish family in Augustow, and died in New York City, USA.

Related Topics:
February 11 - 1897 - April 21 - 1954 - Polish - Mathematician - Logician - Jewish - Augustow - New York City

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In his Columbia University doctoral thesis, he proved, among other things, that the propositional calculus of Principia Mathematica was complete: all tautologies are theorems, given the Principia axioms and a rule of uniform substitution. Van Heijenoort's (1966) source book on mathematical logic reprinted Post's classic article setting out this result. This thesis also devised truth tables independently of Wittgenstein and Charles Peirce and put them to good mathematical use.

Related Topics:
Principia Mathematica - Wittgenstein - Charles Peirce

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In 1936 he developed, independently of Alan Turing's Turing machine, an abstract computer model named the Post machine.

Related Topics:
1936 - Alan Turing - Turing machine - Post machine

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His Post correspondence problem contributed to the decision problems of recursion theory, as a new model of computation.

Related Topics:
Post correspondence problem - Decision problem - Recursion theory

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