Logicomix

• Title — Logicomix • Publisher — Bloomsbury Publishing and Bloomsbury USA • Date — October 20, 2008 (in Greek) September 7, 2009 (in English) • Main Char Team — * Bertrand Russell • Ludwig Wittgenstein • Alfred North Whitehead • Origlanguage — Greek • Origisbn — 978-960-8399-67-9 • Writers — * Apostolos Doxiadis • Christos Papadimitriou • Artist — Alecos Papadatos • Inkers — * Dimitris Karatzaferis • Thodoris Paraskevas • Colourist — Annie Di Donna • Letterer — Anne Bardy • Pages — 352

Set between the late 19th century and the present day, the graphic novel Logicomix is based on the story of the so-called "foundational quest" in mathematics. Logicomix intertwines the philosophical struggles with the characters' own personal turmoil. These are in turn played out just upstage of the momentous historical events of the era and the ideological battles which gave rise to them. The narrator of the story is Bertrand Russell, who stands as an icon of many of these themes: a deeply sensitive and introspective man, Russell was not just a philosopher and pacifist, he was also one of the prominent figures in the foundational quest. Russell's life story, depicted by Logicomix, is itself a journey through the goals and struggles, and triumph and tragedy shared by many great thinkers of the 20th century: Georg Cantor, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore, Alfred North Whitehead, David Hilbert, Gottlob Frege, Henri Poincaré, Kurt Gödel, and Alan Turing. A parallel tale, set in present-day Athens, records the creators’ disagreement on the meaning of the story, thus setting in relief the foundational quest as a quintessentially modern adventure. It is on the one hand a tragedy of the hubris of rationalism, which descends inextricably on madness, and on the other an origin myth of the computer.

According to Paolo Mancosu in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, the authors "admittedly take liberties with the real course of events", for example with reference to the alleged meetings Russell would have had with Frege and Cantor. Although "such departures from reality can be fruitful for narrative purposes", according to Mancosu, in some cases they are objectionable, as the portrayal of Frege as a "rabid paranoid antisemite", and the "constant refrain of the alleged causal link between logic and madness". From "the conceptual point of view, some of the major ideas about the foundation of mathematics are conveyed with reasonable accuracy", although sometimes errors, mistakes, and inaccuracies occur. However, the global judgement by Mancosu is positive: I enjoyed reading Logicomix immensely. The authors have tackled an extremely complicated subject with thought-provoking ideas in an aesthetically pleasing and entertaining fashion. Thus, my few critical remarks should not mislead you. I highly recommend Logicomix even though my recommendation is qualified: the reader should provide his/her grain of salt.

• Math, Philosophy, Comics and Bertrand Russell’s Search for Truth, Publishers Weekly, April 14, 2009 • Bertrand Russell: The thinking person's superhero, The Independent, September 2, 2009 • Logicomix, Financial Times, September 5, 2009 • Essay review by Paolo Mancosu, pp. 1–14, U.C. Berkeley, January 2010