Kurt Gödel

Kurt Gödel , (April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics. He was born in Brünn in Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now Brno in the Czech Republic), became a Czechoslovak citizen at age 12 when the Austro-Hungarian empire was broken up, and an Austrian citizen at age 23. When Hitler annexed Austria, Gödel automatically became a German citizen at age 32. After World War II, at the age of 42, he obtained US citizenship.

Related Topics:
Kurt gøːdl - April 28 - 1906 - January 14 - 1978 - Moravia - Austria-Hungary - Brno - Czech Republic - Czechoslovak - Austria - Hitler - Annexed Austria - German - World War II - US

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Gödel's most famous works were his incompleteness theorems, the most famous of which states that any self-consistent recursive axiomatic system powerful enough to describe integer arithmetic will allow for "true" propositions about integers that can not be proven from the axioms. To prove this theorem, Gödel developed a technique now known as Gödel numbering, which codes formal expressions into arithmetic. He also produced celebrated work on the continuum hypothesis, showing that it cannot be disproven from the accepted set theory axioms, assuming that those axioms are consistent.

Related Topics:
Incompleteness theorems - Recursive - Axiomatic system - Gödel numbering - Continuum hypothesis - Set theory

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Gödel made important contributions to proof theory; he clarified the connections between classical logic, intuitionistic logic and

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Proof theory - Classical logic - Intuitionistic logic

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modal logic by defining translations between them.

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Kurt Gödel was perhaps the greatest logician of the 20th century and one of the three greatest logicians of all time with Aristotle and Frege. He published his most important result in 1931 at age of twenty-five when he worked at Vienna University, Austria.

Related Topics:
20th century - Aristotle - Frege - 1931 - Vienna University

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