Math & science · 1879

Predicate logic

Frege creates a full formal language for mathematical reasoning.

The Begriffsschrift introduced quantifiers and variables. It is the ancestor of the formal systems in logic, programming languages and automated theorem provers.

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Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Boolean logic 1854

What it led to 7

Godel's incompleteness 1931
Logic Theorist 1956
NP-completeness 1971
Prolog 1972
Jacobian conjecture disproved 2026
Fermat's Last Theorem machine-checked 2026
AI proves a major open conjecture ~2033

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Computation per constant dollar, 1850-2006 Latest: 7.3B million units of computer power per 2006 $ (2003) Source: Nordhaus 2007, Two Centuries of Productivity Growth in Computing, J. Econ. Hist. 67(1), Table 6