Kurt Gödel





The life of Kurt Gödel:

Considered along with Aristotle to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel had an immense effect upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century, 

Kurt Friedrich Gödel (1906–1978) was born on April 28th in Brünn, Moravia, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, now part of the Czech Republic.  Gödel was neither Czech nor Jewish. Although his parents had been born in Brünn, they were very much part of a German community. However, Gödel considered himself always Austrian in  exile in Czechoslovakia.

Just before the outbreak of the second world war, Gödel moved permanently to the USA, where he worked at Princeton University. 

Hungarian mathematician  John von Neumann (1903–1957) once wrote that Kurt Gödel was “absolutely irreplaceable” and “in a class by himself”. Describing his 1931 proof of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, von Neumann called the achievement as  "Singular and monumental — indeed it is more than a monument, it is a landmark which will remain visible far in space and time. The subject of logic will never again be the same and has completely changed its nature and possibilities with Gödel's achievement."

Von Neumann was not alone in his admiration of Gödel. A young Alan Turing (1912–1954) sought out Gödel in 1936 to inquire about his own monumental reformulation of Gödel’s incompleteness result which showed the limits of proof and computation. Towards the end of his life, Albert Einstein (1879–1955) confided to Oskar Morgenstern (1902–1977) that although his "Own work no longer meant much, he came to the Institute merely to have the privilege of walking home with Gödel”.

Gödel's incompleteness theorems state that:  

Within any axiomatic mathematical system there are propositions that cannot be proved or disproved on the basis of the axioms within that system; thus, such a system cannot be simultaneously complete and consistent. 

Thus, Gödel proved that:
1. If a logical or axiomatic formal system is consistent, it cannot be complete. 

2. The consistency of axioms cannot be proved within their own system.

This proof established Gödel as one of the greatest logicians since Aristotle, and its repercussions  continue to be felt and debated today.

Indeed, many if not most of 20th century’s mathematical giants looked up to Kurt Gödel. In 1974, he was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Gerald Ford for "singlehandedly laying the foundation for today's flourishing study of mathematical logic.”

When the time came for the award ceremony however, Gödel refused to travel to the White House, fearful that he might contract an illness on the trip. A lifelong hypochondriac, Gödel from a young age developed an obsession with illness and disease, in addition to suffering from iophobia, the fear of being poisoned. For decades, he kept daily records of his body temperature and bowel movements. Convinced that a bout of rheumatic fever in his youth had affected his heart, he would obsessively take heart medications. According to his friend Morgenstern, by 1974 Gödel was ingesting a wide range of daily medications for ailments he didn’t have, including digestive, bowel and cardiac problems as well as for kidney and bladder infections. For the latter part of his life, he would only eat food that his wife Adele prepared for him. When in 1977 Adele was hospitalized, fearful that his food would be poisoned, he stopped eating altogether and subsequently died of self-starvation. His death certificate reports that he weighed 29 kilograms  at the time of his death, and that it was due to “malnutrition caused by personality disturbance“.

This then  is the story of Kurt Gödel, a flawed genius, described as the "Mathematics' Prince of Darkness."

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