Philip Edward Bertrand Jourdain (16 October 1879 – 1 October 1919) was a British

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, logician and follower of

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

Background

He was born in Ashbourne in Derbyshire* one of a large family belonging to Emily Clay and his father Francis Jourdain (who was the vicar at Ashbourne). His sister Eleanor Jourdain was an English academic and author. Another sister,

Margaret Margaret is a feminine given name, which means "pearl". It is of Latin origin, via Ancient Greek and ultimately from Iranian languages, Old Iranian. It has been an English language, English name since the 11th century, and remained popular thro ...

(1876–1951), was an authority on the history of fine English home-furnishings, and the life-long companion of the novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett.

Mathematics and logic

Jourdain was partly disabled by

Friedreich's ataxia Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA) is a rare, inherited, autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder that primarily affects the nervous system, causing progressive damage to the spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and cerebellum, leading to impaired ...

. He corresponded with

Georg Cantor Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor ( ; ; – 6 January 1918) was a mathematician who played a pivotal role in the creation of set theory, which has become a foundations of mathematics, fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor establi ...

and

Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philos ...

, and took a close interest in the paradoxes related to

Russell's paradox In mathematical logic, Russell's paradox (also known as Russell's antinomy) is a set-theoretic paradox published by the British philosopher and mathematician, Bertrand Russell, in 1901. Russell's paradox shows that every set theory that contains ...

, formulating the card paradox version of the liar paradox.Turnbull archive
accessed 7 December 2007 He corresponded with

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...

, meeting with him in Cambridge to discuss Frege's book Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, parts of which Jourdain had prepared a translation. He also worked on

algebraic logic In mathematical logic, algebraic logic is the reasoning obtained by manipulating equations with Free variables and bound variables, free variables. What is now usually called classical algebraic logic focuses on the identification and algebraic de ...

, and the

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...

with

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

as a particular study. He was London editor for '' The Monist''. Near the end of his life Jourdain became increasingly obsessed by trying to prove the

axiom of choice In mathematics, the axiom of choice, abbreviated AC or AoC, is an axiom of set theory. Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection of non-empty sets, it is possible to construct a new set by choosing one element from e ...

, and published several incorrect proofs of it. describes Jourdain on his deathbed still arguing with him about his (incorrect) proof of the axiom of choice. Later, the independence of the axiom of choice was established.

Works

The following works of Philip Jourdain are available from

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

: * 1908
Some Points in the Foundation of Mathematical Physics
in The Monist v 18 * 1911
Some Modern Advances in Logic
in ''The Monist'' v 21 * 1913
The Nature of Mathematics
* 1913
The Nature and Validity of the Principle of Least Action
in ''The Monist'' v 23 * 1914
The Economy of Thought
in ''The Monist'' v 24 * 1918
The Philosophy of B*rtr*nd R*ss*ll with an appendix of leading passages from certain other works
* 1919
Indefinables and Indemonstrables in Mathematics and Theology
in ''The Monist'' v 29 Jordain acted as editor for *1914:

Augustus De Morgan Augustus De Morgan (27 June 1806 – 18 March 1871) was a British mathematician and logician. He is best known for De Morgan's laws, relating logical conjunction, disjunction, and negation, and for coining the term "mathematical induction", the ...

:
Essays on the Life and Work of Newton
Jourdain made the following translations: * 1911: Ernst Machbr>History and Root of the Principle of Conservation of Energy
* 1915: Ernst Mac
The Science of Mechanics
* 1915:

br>Contributions to the Foundation of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers

References

* Ivor Grattan-Guinness (1977) ''Dear Russell—Dear Jourdain: a Commentary on Russell's Logic, Based on His Correspondence with Philip Jourdain''. Duckworth. ** . * Archibald Edward Heath (1920) "Philip Edward Bertrand Jourdain", ''The Monist'' 30:161–182. *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jourdain, Philip 1879 births 1919 deaths People from Ashbourne, Derbyshire English logicians 19th-century English philosophers 20th-century English philosophers