Person: Löb, Martin Hugo

Martin Löbwas a German mathematician who worked in in England after World War II. He specialised in mathematical logic.

It seems an unlikely palace for Löb to be able to study mathematics and logic at an advanced level, but one must remember that professional mathematicians were also interned in the camp and were keen to teach.
The British government decided that its policy on internments was wrong in 1943 and this allowed Löb to return from Australia to England.
Löb applied for the position and was appointed to the post.
Löb was appointed as an assistant lecturer at Leeds University in 1951.
At Leeds Löb established the Leeds Logic Group, one of three international centres for Mathematical Logic in Britain.
Examples of papers by Löb in the Journal of Symbolic Logic in the 1950s are Concatenation as basis for a complete system of arithmetic (1953), Solution of a problem of Leon Henkin (1955), and Formal systems of constructive mathematics (1956).
It is the second of these papers which is the most famous and contains what is now known as Löb's theorem.
It is this question which Löb answered in his 1955 paper, showing that "This statement is provable in TTT" is indeed provable in TTT.
Löb's theorem is in some sense gives rise to a paradox called Löb's paradox.
Löb valued his students highly and was concerned as much for their welfare as their academic progress.

Born 31 March 1921, Berlin, Germany. Died 21 August 2006, Annen, Netherlands.

View full biography at MacTutor

Origin Germany

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive