Bertrand Russell (Mathematician Series) –36×36”
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Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a quintessential Renaissance man. A Welshman gifted in mathematics as well as philosophy, writing, history, politics, and social theory, he hailed from a long line of British aristocracy. His godfather was the philosopher/economist John Stuart Mill, and his grandfather had been Prime Minister under Queen Victoria.
Orphaned at age three, he was cared for by his grandmother in relative isolation from other children. Naturally, he became depressed and later recalled, somewhat geekily, that his study of Euclidean geometry at the age of eleven turned out to be a true delight and mood-lifter for him.
In the 1890s, he attended Trinity College in Cambridge, the alma mater hotbed of many mathematicians such as Newton, G.H. Hardy, Ramanujan, and Wittgenstein. His mathematical field is sometimes referred to as mathematical philosophy.
In 1903, he published The Principles of Mathematics, where he argued that logic and math are one and the same. This is also where he proposed the famous Russell’s paradox, which states that a given entity can simultaneously exist both in a set and not in a set (referring to the same set). This conundrum is also called the barber paradox:
There is a town where all residents must be clean-shaven.
The barber in the town shaves only those who don’t shave themselves.
The paradox demonstrates that the barber can’t win in this situation – he’s breaking the rules if he shaves himself but also if he doesn’t shave himself.
With this paradox, Russell undermined the validity of the work in logic that Gottlob Frege had just completed. Bertrand went on a decade later to publish with Alfred North Whitehead Principia Mathematica, a three -volume work on the foundations of mathematics. Ludwig Wittgenstein, who shared an interest in the philosophy of mathematics with Russell, credited Russell with supporting his ideas at Trinity, diverting him from suicidal thoughts, and saving his life. Russell, in turn, eventually came to see Wittgenstein as a student eclipsing his teacher in talent.
In addition to his many contributions to math, Russell won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950, was a pacifist who spent time in jail for his anti-war protests, was an outspoken proponent of free love, wrote essays supporting suffragism and atheism, and served as an unrelenting voice for nuclear disarmament. He died in Wales after 97 eventful and extremely prolific years.
