Lewis Carroll's Logic Problems

Date: 01/15/97 at 23:28:55
From: Anonymous
Subject: Carroll Lewis' logic problems

Dear Sir/Madam,

I'm looking for some problems written by Lewis Carroll, the author 
of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_.  I know he was a well-known 
mathematician who wrote some problems on logic for his daughter.  
The problems involve three people, A, B and C. If A says that B is 
a liar and C says that A lies, who is telling the truth?  

I know I'm not being very specific, but I would be grateful if you 
could help me find a collection of those problems.  Thank you very 
much!

Best regards,
Anonymous

Date: 01/16/97 at 00:35:01
From: Doctor Sarah
Subject: Re: Carroll Lewis' logic problems

Hello!

You're the second person this week to write asking about Lewis 
Carroll's logic problems. Following is all I have been able to 
find. I think you'll need to consult a library offline for the 
problems themselves.

Here's a book by Carroll on logic:

 AUTHOR       Carroll, Lewis, 1832-1898.
 TITLE        Symbolic logic. Part I. Elementary
 EDITION      Second edition.
 PUBLISHER    London, New York, Macmillan, 1896.
 DESCRIPT     xxxi, 192 p. diagrs. 17 cm.
 SUBJECT      Logic, Symbolic and mathematical.
 NOTE         Williams and Madan (l962) no.270.

This book was intended to be an introduction to logic for children.  
You can find the introduction to it at:

  http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/carroll.htm   

Locating all kinds of information about Lewis Carroll (his pseudonym) 
or Charles L. Dodgson (his real name) is pretty easy if you use 
Altavista:
 
http://altavista.digital.com/   

and type in the words "Lewis Carroll logic"

For an article with examples of math in Lewis Carroll's work, 
"Hankies, Snarks, and Triangles" by Ivars Peterson:

  http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathland_1_13.html   

Take a look at a page called "New Light on Lewis Carroll" at:

  http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/Politics/McLean/black.html   

"Dodgson was the first person writing in English to point out that 
sometimes there is a majority for A over B, for B over C, and for C 
over A - all at the same time!  He also wrote pamphlets about 
proportional representation and about tennis tournaments.... Writing 
in 1884, he praised the unpopular 'limited vote' which then operated 
in the big English cities, in which each voter had fewer votes than 
there were seats to fill. Most people thought that this was less 
democratic than giving each voter as many votes as there were seats. 
Dodgson proved that it was more democratic. To do so, he used concepts 
we would today label 'game theoretic', although such concepts were not 
formalised until decades after his death."

Here's another of his works on logic:

 AUTHOR       Carroll, Lewis, 1832-1898.
 TITLE        The game of logic
 PUBLISHER    London : Macmillan, 1886.
 DESCRIPT     96 p. : diagrs. ; 19 cm.
 SUBJECT      Logic.


There's a Lewis Carroll home page with many links to related materials 
on Lewis Carroll at: 

  http://www.lewiscarroll.org/carroll.html   

-Doctor Sarah,  The Math Forum
 Check out our web site!  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/