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Book review

Author(s) Schöning, Uwe
Title Logik fur Informatiker, 3. ,überarbeitete Auflage
Publisher B.I. Wiss. Verl.
Year of publication 1992
   
Reviewed by Mirela Stefanescu

From the beginning, the formal logic plays a main role in the development of the computers . It is generally accepted that an informatician has to learn a course of logics. This book , written by the professor Uwe Schöning from the University of Ulm (in fact,this is the third edition), contains those topics in informatics which are necessary for programming.

The propositional calculus is studied in the first chapter of the book (operations with propositions, formulas, equivalences and normal forms, compactness theorem, resolution). Then the predicate calculus is treated in seventy pages (normal forms, theorems of Post, Church, an introduction to mathematical theories, the Herbrand's universe, structure and expansion, the problem of uncertainty, refinement of resolutions, the unification theorem of Robinson, lifting lemmas).

The last chapter deals with some applications of mathematical logics in informatics, i.e. with the logic of programming, giving some special programs and their semantic, and making a fine analysis of the programming language PROLOG.

The book contains many exercises whose solutions are given in the end. A rich list of references completes this interesting course for students, very useful also for those working in informatics.