Editing George Boolos (section)

== Life ==
Boolos was of [[Greeks|Greek]]-[[Jews|Jewish]] descent.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Modern Logic |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=304–310 |publisher=Project Euclid |editor=Irving H. Anellis |title=GEORGE S. BOOLOS |url=https://projecteuclid.org/download/pdf_1/euclid.rml/1204835733 |date=July 1996}}</ref> He graduated with an [[A.B.]] in [[mathematics]] from [[Princeton University]] after completing a senior thesis, titled "A simple proof of [[Gödel's incompleteness theorems|Gödel's first incompleteness theorem]]", under the supervision of [[Raymond Smullyan]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Boolos|first=George Stephen|url=https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/3717077|title=A simple proof of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem|date=1961|publisher=Princeton, NJ: Department of Mathematics|language=English}}</ref> [[Oxford University]] awarded him the [[B.Phil.#University of Oxford|B.Phil.]] in 1963. In 1966, he obtained the first [[PhD]] in [[MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences#Philosophy|philosophy]] ever awarded by the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], under the direction of [[Hilary Putnam]]. After teaching three years at [[Columbia University]], he returned to MIT in 1969, where he spent the rest of his career.

A charismatic speaker well known for his clarity and [[wit]], he once delivered a lecture (1994b) giving an account of [[Gödel's second incompleteness theorem]], employing only words of one syllable. At the end of his viva, [[Hilary Putnam]] asked him, "And tell us, Mr. Boolos, what does the [[analytical hierarchy]] have to do with the real world?" Without hesitating Boolos replied, "It's part of it". An expert on puzzles of all kinds, in 1993 Boolos reached the London Regional Final of ''[[The Times]]'' [[crossword]] competition. His score was one of the highest ever recorded by an American. He wrote a paper on "[[The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever]]"—one of many puzzles created by [[Raymond Smullyan]].

Boolos died of [[pancreatic cancer]] on 27 May 1996.<ref>{{cite web |title=Professor George Boolos Dead at 55 |url=https://news.mit.edu/1996/boolos |website=MIT News |language=en |date=May 29, 1996}}</ref>