4 ideas and puzzles from Bertrand Russell, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.
In a certain village there is exactly one barber. He shaves all — and only — the men who do not shave themselves. Every man in the village is shaved either by himself or by the bar…
— Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism
Consider this phrase: 'the smallest positive integer not nameable in fewer than twenty syllables.' Count its own syllables — there are fewer than twenty. But the phrase claims to n…
— Bertrand Russell (paradox credited to G. G. Berry), Mathematical logic as based on the theory of types
Russell imagined a china teapot floating between Earth and Mars, too small for any telescope to see. Nobody could disprove it — but that doesn't mean you should believe it. He used…
— Bertrand Russell, Is There a God?
In 1901 Bertrand Russell asked whether the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contains itself. Either answer makes the statement false — a genuine contradiction inside …
— Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathematics