Kurt Gödel
Mathematician, Academic
1906 – 1978
Who was Kurt Gödel?
Kurt Friedrich Gödel was an 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, 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.
We need you!
Help us build the largest biographies collection on the web!
- Born
- Apr 28, 1906
Brno - Also known as
- Kurt Godel
- Parents
- Spouses
- Adele Nimbursky Porkert
(1938/09/20 - 1978/01/14)
- Adele Nimbursky Porkert
- Religion
- Theism
- Nationality
- United States of America
- Austria
- Profession
- Education
- Doctorate, University of Vienna
Mathematics
- Doctorate, University of Vienna
- Employment
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Lived in
- Brno
- Died
- Jan 14, 1978
Princeton
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Citation
Use the citation below to add to a bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Kurt Gödel." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 18 Apr. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/kurt_godel>.
Discuss this Kurt Gödel biography with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In