Berry Paradox

The Berry paradox is a self-referential paradox arising from the expression "the smallest possible integer not definable by a given number of words". Bertrand Russell, the first to discuss the paradox in print, attributed it to G. G. Berry (1867–1928), a junior librarian at Oxford's Bodleian library, who had suggested the more limited paradox arising from the expression "the first undefinable ordinal".

Read more about Berry Paradox:  The Paradox, Resolution, Formal Analogues, Relationship With Kolmogorov Complexity

Famous quotes containing the words berry and/or paradox:

    A grandchild is a miracle, but a renewed relationship with your own children is even a greater one.
    —T. Berry Brazelton (20th century)

    A good aphorism is too hard for the teeth of time and is not eaten up by all the centuries, even though it serves as food for every age: hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which—like salt—is always prized, but which never loses its savor as salt does.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)