I’ve recently started reading “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas R. Hofstadter, often abbreviated to GEB (ISBN-10: 9780465026562), and I’ve fallen completely in love with it. The combination of mind-warping arguments about math and logic, and Mr. Hofstadter’s ability to write in a way that scratches a very specific itch in my brain, make the experience of reading this book a rare joy for me.
But besides that, the book also contains a number of puzzles — in fact, it sometimes feels as if the entire book were a puzzle in and of itself — and so, for the first time in a long time (maybe ever?), I have felt compelled to add to my reading equipment a notebook and a pen.
So that’s what this is. A second year computer scientist’s (aggressively polished up) notes on GEB. Enjoy!
Note
It is very possible — and indeed probable — that this page contains a number of mathematical mistakes on my part. So everything on it should only be accepted after intense scrutiny on the reader’s part.
And if the reader were to find a specific mistake, please do let me know! I’d love nothing more than to revise some of these puzzles. I have loved doing them the first time as well, after all.