biography
| name: |
Gödel or Goedel, Kurt (Friedrich)
|
pronunciation:
[goedl]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1906–78)
|
| biography:
| Mathematician and logician, born in Brno, Czech Republic (formerly Brunn, Moravia). He studied and taught in Vienna, and in 1933 began an association with the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, but he did not emigrate to the USA until 1940. He stimulated a great deal of significant work in mathematical logic as well as in set theory and general relativity. In 1931 he propounded one of the most important theorems in modern mathematics, Godel's proof: simply stated, in any formal system of mathematics there must be some formally undecidable, or logically uncertain, elements. Personally idiosyncratic and reclusive, he was the first recipient of the International Congress of Mathematicians' Einstein Award (1951) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. |
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