Before the mid-seventeenth century, scholars generally agreed that it was impossible to predict something by calculating mathematical outcomes. One simply could not put a numerical value on the likel
Since their inception, the Perspectives in Logic and Lecture Notes in Logic series have published seminal works by leading logicians. Many of the original books in the series have been unavailable for years, but they are now in print once again. In this volume, the sixth publication in the Perspectives in Logic series, Keith J. Devlin gives a comprehensive account of the theory of constructible sets at an advanced level. The book provides complete coverage of the theory itself, rather than the many and diverse applications of constructibility theory, although applications are used to motivate and illustrate the theory. The book is divided into two parts: Part I (Elementary Theory) deals with the classical definition of the Lα-hierarchy of constructible sets and may be used as the basis of a graduate course on constructibility theory. and Part II (Advanced Theory) deals with the Jα-hierarchy and the Jensen 'fine-structure theory'.
