In logic, Richard's paradox is a semantical antinomy in set theory and natural language first described by the French mathematician Jules Richard in 1905. Today, the paradox is ordinarily used in order to motivate the importance of carefully distinguishing between mathematics and metamathematics. The paradox was also a motivation in the development of predicative mathematics.
Read more about Richard's Paradox: Description, Analysis and Relationship With Metamathematics, Variation: Richardian Numbers, Relation To Predicativism
Famous quotes containing the word paradox:
“A good aphorism is too hard for the teeth of time and is not eaten up by all the centuries, even though it serves as food for every age: hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which—like salt—is always prized, but which never loses its savor as salt does.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)