Godel, Kurt
| Name |
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| born on | 28 April 1906 | ||||
| Place | Brno, Czech Republic, 49n12, 16e37 | ||||
| Timezone | MET h1e (is standard time) | ||||
| Data source |
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| Astrology data |   07°14'   or 
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Biography
Austrian, and later American, logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century, a time when others such as Bertrand Russell, A. N. Whitehead,and David Hilbert were pioneering the use of logic and set theory to understand the foundations of mathematics.
Gödel published his two incompleteness theorems in 1931 when he was 25 years old, one year after finishing his doctorate at the University of Vienna. The first incompleteness theorem states that for any self-consistent recursive axiomatic system powerful enough to describe the arithmetic of the natural numbers (for example Peano arithmetic), there are true propositions about the naturals that cannot be proved from the axioms. To prove this theorem, Gödel developed a technique now known as Gödel numbering, which codes formal expressions as natural numbers.
He also showed that neither the axiom of choice nor the continuum hypothesis can be disproved from the accepted axioms of set theory, assuming these axioms are consistent. The former result opened the door for mathematicians to assume the axiom of choice in their proofs. He also made important contributions to proof theory by clarifying the connections between classical logic, intuitionistic logic, and modal logic.
Later in his life, Gödel suffered periods of mental instability and illness. He had an obsessive fear of being poisoned; he would eat only food that his wife, Adele, prepared for him. Late in 1977, she was hospitalized for six months and could no longer prepare her husband's food. In her absence, he refused to eat, eventually starving to death. He died 14 January 1978.
Relationships
- associate relationship with Carnap, Rudolf (born 18 May 1891). Notes: Vienna Circle members
- associate relationship with Grelling, Kurt (born 2 March 1886)
- associate relationship with Schlick, Moritz (born 14 April 1882). Notes: Vienna Circle members
- friend relationship with Brouwer, Luitzen (born 27 February 1881)
Source Notes
Birth time unknown. Starkman rectified to 09.18.16 CET Asc 22Can09'
Categories
- Vocation : Humanities+Social Sciences : Philosopher
- Vocation : Science : Mathematics/ Statistics
- Notable : Famous : Founder/ originator