Editing Gödel, Escher, Bach (section)

==Reception and impact==

''Gödel, Escher, Bach'' won the [[Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction]] and the [[National Book Award]] for Science Hardcover.

[[Martin Gardner]]'s July 1979 column in ''[[Scientific American]]'' stated, "Every few decades, an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, clarity, range, wit, beauty and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event."<ref>{{cite web|last=Somers|first=James|title=The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-man-who-would-teach-machines-to-think/309529/|work=[[The Atlantic]]|date=23 October 2013|publisher=[[The Atlantic Media Company]]|access-date=25 October 2013}}</ref>

For Summer 2007, the [[MIT|Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] created an online course for high school students built around the book.<ref name = "MIT">{{citation | url = http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/humanities-and-social-sciences/godel-escher-bach/ | publisher = MIT | title = GEB| date = 18 March 2024 }}</ref>

In its February 19, 2010, investigative summary on the [[2001 anthrax attacks]], the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] suggested that [[Bruce Edwards Ivins]] was inspired by the book to hide secret codes based upon [[nucleotide sequence]]s in the [[anthrax]]-laced letters he allegedly sent in September and October 2001,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.justice.gov/amerithrax/docs/amx-investigative-summary.pdf |title=Amerithrax Investigative Summary |publisher=United States Department of Justice |date=February 19, 2010 |access-date=2010-11-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101128035809/http://www.justice.gov/amerithrax/docs/amx-investigative-summary.pdf |archive-date=2010-11-28 |url-status=dead}}</ref> using bold letters, as suggested on page 404 of the book.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.justice.gov/amerithrax/docs/j-geb-page-%20404.pdf |title=Page 404 of Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid |publisher=United States Department of Justice |access-date=2010-11-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101128035834/http://www.justice.gov/amerithrax/docs/j-geb-page-%20404.pdf |archive-date=2010-11-28 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins, the Anthrax Attacks, and America's Rush to War |year=2011 |first=David |last=Willman |author-link=David Willman |publisher=[[Bantam Books]] |page=300 |isbn=9780553807752}}</ref> It was also suggested that he attempted to hide the book from investigators by throwing it in the trash.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Shane|first=Scott|date=2010-02-19|title=F.B.I., Laying Out Evidence, Closes Anthrax Case|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/us/20anthrax.html|access-date=2021-06-09|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

In 2019, British mathematician [[Marcus du Sautoy]] curated a series of events at London's [[Barbican Centre]] to celebrate the book's fortieth anniversary.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Sautoy|first=Marcus du|date=2019-03-09|title=Can AI become conscious? Bach, Escher and Gödel's 'strange loops' may have the answer|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/mar/09/bach-escher-godel-douglas-hofstadter-consciousness-ai-revolution-mathematical-idea-art-music|access-date=2020-07-27|issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

=== ''I Am a Strange Loop'' ===
{{Main article|I Am a Strange Loop}}
Hofstadter has expressed some frustration with how ''Gödel, Escher, Bach'' was received. He felt that readers did not fully grasp that [[Strange loop|strange loops]] were supposed to be the central theme of the book, and attributed this confusion to the length of the book and the breadth of the topics covered.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hofstadter |first=Douglas R. |title=Gödel, Escher, Bach |url=https://archive.org/details/gdelescherbachet00hofs |publisher=Basic Books |year=1999 |isbn=0-465-02656-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/gdelescherbachet00hofs/page/n7 P–1-23 (Twentieth-anniversary preface)] |author-link=Douglas R. Hofstadter |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Boden |first=Margaret |date=2017-02-06 |title=Self Assembly |url=https://www.americanscientist.org/article/self-assembly |access-date=2023-07-15 |website=American Scientist |language=en}}</ref>

To remedy this issue, Hofstadter published ''I Am a Strange Loop'' in 2007, which had a more focused discussion of the idea.<ref name=":0" />