Today we will present a brief biography of Kurt Godel, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, it can be said that, thanks to his contributions, the foundations of mathematics, as they were understood at the time, were deeply shaken. It only showed that there were inconsistencies in what was known until then, but it also showed that the logic had important limitations.
This wonderful scientist is also proof that reason and absurdity can coexist perfectly, both in theory and in human beings themselves.
- Kurt Gulel was an absolutely brilliant man.
- But he also had completely irrational convictions.
- A paranoid genius in which intelligence and madness coexist simultaneously.
“Life can be miserable for seventy years and happy for a million years: the brief period of misery may even be necessary for the whole. ” Kurt
In other words, what Kurt Godel showed was that you couldn’t prove all the mathematical truths. Or, as quoted in a BBC article: “What Godel did was use mathematics to prove that mathematics couldn’t prove everything in math. “It can be inferred from this premise that there are truths, mathematics and others, which, although true, cannot be tested.
The nickname? Sir, why? He gave it his own family, he has always shown himself a person marked by an excessive curiosity for the world, he wanted to know everything and he needed to find a solution to everything, so he was always asking questions and therefore got that famous nickname.
He was born on 28 April 1906 in a village called Brunn, which at that time belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then became part of Czechoslovakia. Currently, the city belongs to the Czech Republic. In any case, the issue of nationalities was quite difficult for it.
He came from a German family and did not speak Czech. With the end of the Empire, overnight, he became a Czech citizen. Not feeling himself a member of this nation, he decided to obtain Austrian citizenship in 1923. He annexed Austria and, as a result, became a German citizen. Finally, after World War II, he obtained American citizenship.
Mathematics was the field of absolute certainty in the scientific landscape, that is, in this inhabited field what every scientist sought: the truth, which seemed indisputable until signs of crisis began to appear.
By the early 20th century, mathematician Georg Cantor had sown some seeds of doubt that were eventually fed by Russell’s paradoxes.
David Hilbert, renowned mathematician, set out to restore the old fame of mathematics and demonstrate that the foundations of his science were as solid as what was previously considered, made a great effort until the thesis of a young man named Kurt Godel arrived, managing to prove otherwise.
He graduated with honors from the University of Vienna, with a thesis of only 11 pages in which he defended his theory of incomprehentitude. Using mathematics, he managed to prove that there will always be at least one proposition that cannot be tested, even if it is true.
In 1936, one of his teachers was killed by a Nazi, as a result of this fact, he suffered a nervous breakdown that led him to undergo treatment in various psychiatric institutions.
In 1938, Kurt Godel married Adele Nimbursky, a former dancer six years his eldest and with whom he remained until his death.
The following year, as he was possible to be called to do their military service to the Nazis, the couple decided to flee to the United States, using the weary Trans-Siberian train, and arrived at Princeton, where Godel continued their journey. Work.
His friendship with Albert Einstein was proverbial. The two were often seen on campus during night walks and speaking incessantly.
He was also a great scholar of philosophy, and both his mathematical knowledge and his philosophical questions led him to postulate “the ontological demonstration of Godel”. This idea consists, in a word, of an attempt to prove the existence of God.
As we analyze Kurt Godel’s biography, we see that, for much of his life, he was besathed by paranoid thoughts and depressive states. It was not easy to realize that all the truths were questionable, even this truth.
He was convinced that someone wanted to poison him and that is why he agreed to eat only what his wife prepared for him, however she became ill and spent six months in the hospital, a period in which the great genius starved to death.