Journey to the Edge of Reason

Journey to the Edge of Reason
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 407
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780192636133
ISBN-13 : 0192636138
Rating : 4/5 (138 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Journey to the Edge of Reason by : Stephen Budiansky

Download or read book Journey to the Edge of Reason written by Stephen Budiansky and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A remarkable account of Kurt Gödel, weaving together creative genius, mental illness, political corruption, and idealism in the face of the turmoil of war and upheaval. At age 24, a brilliant Austrian-born mathematician published a mathematical result that shook the world. Nearly a hundred years after Kurt Gödel's famous 1931 paper "On Formally Undecidable Propositions" appeared, his proof that every mathematical system must contain propositions that are true - yet never provable within that system - continues to pose profound questions for mathematics, philosophy, computer science, and artificial intelligence. His close friend Albert Einstein, with whom he would walk home every day from Princeton's famous Institute for Advanced Study, called him "the greatest logician since Aristotle." He was also a man who felt profoundly out of place in his time, rejecting the entire current of 20th century philosophical thought in his belief that mathematical truths existed independent of the human mind, and beset by personal demons of anxiety and paranoid delusions that would ultimately lead to his tragic end from self-starvation. Drawing on previously unpublished letters, diaries, and medical records, Journey to the Edge of Reason offers the most complete portrait yet of the life of one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers. Stephen Budiansky's account brings to life the remarkable world of philosophical and mathematical creativity of pre-war Vienna, and documents how it was barbarically extinguished by the Nazis. He charts Gödel's own hair's-breadth escape from Nazi Germany to the scholarly idyll of Princeton; and the complex, gently humorous, sensitive, and tormented inner life of this iconic but previously enigmatic giant of modern science. Weaving together Gödel's public and private lives, this is a tale of creative genius, mental illness, political corruption, and idealism in the face of the turmoil of war and upheaval.


Journey to the Edge of Reason Related Books

Journey to the Edge of Reason
Language: en
Pages: 407
Authors: Stephen Budiansky
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-05-11 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

A remarkable account of Kurt Gödel, weaving together creative genius, mental illness, political corruption, and idealism in the face of the turmoil of war and
Incompleteness
Language: en
Pages: 299
Authors: Rebecca Goldstein
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2006-01-31 - Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

GET EBOOK

"An introduction to the life and thought of Kurt Gödel, who transformed our conception of math forever"--Provided by publisher.
Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas
Language: en
Pages: 737
Authors: Stephen Budiansky
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-05-28 - Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

GET EBOOK

“Consistently gripping.… [I]t’s possessed of a zest and omnivorous curiosity that reflects the boundless energy of its subject.” —Steve Donoghue, Chri
Godel
Language: en
Pages: 222
Authors: John L. Casti
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-04-21 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK

Kurt Gödel was an intellectual giant. His Incompleteness Theorem turned not only mathematics but also the whole world of science and philosophy on its head. Sh
A World Without Time
Language: en
Pages: 226
Authors: Palle Yourgrau
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-03-04 - Publisher: Basic Books

GET EBOOK

It is a widely known but little considered fact that Albert Einstein and Kurt Godel were best friends for the last decade and a half of Einstein's life. The two