John Barkley Rosser Sr. (1907-1989) was an American logician, a student of Alonzo Church, and known for his part in the Church-Rosser theorem, in lambda calculus. He also developed what is now called the Rosser sieve , in number theory. He was later Director of the Army Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also wrote mathematical textbooks.

In 1936, he proved a stronger version of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, showing that the requirement for ω-consistency may be weakened to consistency. Rather than using the liar paradox sentence equivalent to "I am not provable," he used a sentence that stated "For every proof of me, there is a shorter proof of my negation".

John Barkley Rosser Jr. is known as a mathematical economist.

External link

Barkley Rosser papers