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Andy Putman
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I've been collecting some of the many unpublished manuscripts of Bill Thurston over the years. His recent passing inspired me to ask the following. I've seen a number of references (for instance, in his wikipedia biography here) to a senior thesis that he wrote when he was a student at New College in Florida which concerns intuitionist foundations for mathematics. Does anyone happen to have a copy of this that they could either post electronically or mail to me?

EDIT : This was originally a comment, but I thought I'd move it up here because it might be of wider interest. Thurston made an interesting blog comment about his early philosophical interests here. An excerpt : "BTW, I was very taken by Kleene’s book on Foundations of Mathematics when I was in college, and it motivated me to write a senior thesis on intuitionist topology. I thought I might become an intuitionist logician, but when I approached Tarski to advise me, he said that Berkeley wasn’t a good place for intuitionism, so I went into topology instead."

I've been collecting some of the many unpublished manuscripts of Bill Thurston over the years. His recent passing inspired me to ask the following. I've seen a number of references (for instance, in his wikipedia biography here) to a senior thesis that he wrote when he was a student at New College in Florida which concerns intuitionist foundations for mathematics. Does anyone happen to have a copy of this that they could either post electronically or mail to me?

I've been collecting some of the many unpublished manuscripts of Bill Thurston over the years. His recent passing inspired me to ask the following. I've seen a number of references (for instance, in his wikipedia biography here) to a senior thesis that he wrote when he was a student at New College in Florida which concerns intuitionist foundations for mathematics. Does anyone happen to have a copy of this that they could either post electronically or mail to me?

EDIT : This was originally a comment, but I thought I'd move it up here because it might be of wider interest. Thurston made an interesting blog comment about his early philosophical interests here. An excerpt : "BTW, I was very taken by Kleene’s book on Foundations of Mathematics when I was in college, and it motivated me to write a senior thesis on intuitionist topology. I thought I might become an intuitionist logician, but when I approached Tarski to advise me, he said that Berkeley wasn’t a good place for intuitionism, so I went into topology instead."

Source Link
Andy Putman
  • 44.8k
  • 14
  • 186
  • 272

Thurston's senior thesis at New College

I've been collecting some of the many unpublished manuscripts of Bill Thurston over the years. His recent passing inspired me to ask the following. I've seen a number of references (for instance, in his wikipedia biography here) to a senior thesis that he wrote when he was a student at New College in Florida which concerns intuitionist foundations for mathematics. Does anyone happen to have a copy of this that they could either post electronically or mail to me?