Thomas Forster
University of Cambridge, UK  
Spring 2003
Imaginaries in Mathematics: History and Logic

Thomas Forster was born in a famous haunted house in Cambridge (England) in 1948. He read music and philosophy at UEA, trained as an EEG technician in New Zealand (in Dunedin and Auckland, where he also studied composition at the Auckland Conservatorium) and did a Ph.D. in mathematics at Cambridge where he now teaches mathematics, philosophy and computer science, and these areas are spanned by his research interests. An introductory textbook, Logic, Induction and Sets, and a monograph on the logic of reductionism, Reasoning about Theoretical Entities, are coming out this year. He spent his time at the Center writing a book with Piers Bursill-Hall on the history and logic of imaginaries in mathematics, and a book on BQO theory (don’t ask). He is a keen (though not very competent) pianist, and although no athlete has played cricket regularly for the Computer Laboratory team in the Cambridge University league for many years (Number 10 bat, bowls wrist-spin) and once did two bungy jumps. Ambition: to write a good locked-room murder.

3 August 2010
Malcolm Forster is now living in China as a result of his meeting another
fellow, Wang Wei of Tsinghua University, during their stay at the Center in 2006.  He plans to preach the Pittsburgh philosophy of science to unsuspecting PhD students at the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Tsinghua University, Beijing, for the next 18 months.

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