Gödel, Kurt#
b. Brno, Czech Republic (then Bruenn), April 28, 1906, d. Princetown (USA), Jan. 14, 1978, mathematician. 1933-1938 university lecturer in Vienna, member of the Vienna Circle; after emigrating to the USA, did research at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton from 1939-1976. One of the most important mathematics logicians of this century, whose results were of almost revolutionary significance for theoretical mathematics, making fundamental contributions to set theory and the general theory of relativity. Goedel's incompleteness theorem states that in a formal logical system incorporating the properties of the natural numbers, there exists at least one formula that can be neither proved nor disproved within the system, the corollary being that the consistency of such a system cannot be proved within the system.
Publications#
Ueber formal unentscheidbare Saetze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme, 1931. - Edition: Collected Works, 3 vols., 1990-1995.Literature#
Nachruf in Monatshefte Mathematik, 1980. D. R. Hofstaedter, G., Escher, Bach, 1985; J. W. Dawson, K. G., Leben und Werk, 1999.