Kurt Gödel 100th Birthday
In case you missed, it was Kurt Gödel’s 100th birthday on April 28th. Why should you care, you ask? He is one of the greatest logicians of all times, some say. All computer scientists out there should know the “Incompleteness Theorem” Gödel proved in his habilitation (after he proved the “Completeness Theorem” in his dissertation).
On Saturday afternoon I went to a Public lecture by Roger Penrose organised by the Kurt Gödel Society. Frankly, I was a little disappointed by the lecture. Roger Penrose repeated himself a few times and occasionally lost the flow. He showed a proof and then said he is not sure anymore whether this is right but assumes so. I felt it was too technical at times for a public lecture, too. Anyway, after the lecture they showed the movie “Kurt Gödel: Ein Mathematischer Mythos”. The content was interesting (most of the time) but the presentation was very old fashioned. I understand that no TV station today wants to show it. It also contained a small error as Fermats last theorem has been proved by now.
Some pictures about this event will be online soon.
Here are a couple of links about Gödel:
TIME 100: Kurt Godel
“Kurt Gödel: He turned the lens of mathematics on itself and hit upon his famous “incompleteness theorem” — driving a stake through the heart of formalism
By DOUGLAS HOFSTADTER”http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/godel.html
“Kurt Gödel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”
