# Big Bang Theory Reference to Formal Logic

In the second episode "The Junior Professor Solution" of the 8th season of the Big Bang Theory, there exists a brief moment where Sheldon Cooper references one of his boards with what for a brief moment looked like a bunch of statements in some formal system which has modal operators and quantification. But there also exists an "ess" phrase in one of the strings of symbols. I also couldn't tell what the rules of the system they would have referenced or what the axioms were.

Did the Big Bang Theory reference a formal system or just write symbols that looked like a formal system to an untrained eye (my guess is the later)?

• Upon reinspection, this is Godel's proof for the existence of god. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_proof – Asaf Karagila Sep 23 '14 at 10:49
• @Joel: I've added a screenshot. – Asaf Karagila Sep 23 '14 at 10:53
• Doesn't this question fit nicely in the 'Understanding mathematical concepts and theorems' group? I think it should be reopened and @AsafKaragila should be awarded points for answering. – Jonas Dahlbæk Sep 23 '14 at 11:02
• The axiom A2 is missing a "not" in the screenshot, since of course it should say that $\varphi$ is positive just in case $\neg\varphi$ is NOT positive. This is what gives Goedel essentially an ultrafilter. – JDH Sep 23 '14 at 11:46
• @JDH: You're right! I didn't notice that. But I suppose this is just a typo. – Asaf Karagila Sep 23 '14 at 12:06

• I find it plausible enough that they just mistakenly forgot to put a "$\lnot$" in axiom 2. – Doug Spoonwood Sep 23 '14 at 15:35