Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel (Great Discoveries) @ richardeward.com

Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel (Great Discoveries)
by Rebecca Goldstein
from W. W. Norton

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• Brief and Engaging Book on Gödel
  This book centers on the irony that Gödel's own philosophical interpretation of his work (which indeed may have driven his efforts to begin with) was in complete opposition to how it was most commonly interpreted by others.
  Gödel was a Platonist, believing that the mind was able to make contact with absolute mathematical reality. Given that he was an attending member of the Vienna circle in the 1920's, which was the locus of logical positivism, many assumed he was of like mind, believing... more info

• A Most Important Read
  Goldstein, does a masterful job describing the life and the work of the greatest logician to ever live. Ironically the genius and logical perfection exuded by Gödel is in the end matched by the equilibrium of the universe- he becomes completely illogical and insane.
  Goldstein writes with a piercing passion and pointed savvy that I envy. He deep appreciation for the mind of the great logician bleeds all the way through the entire read. Gödel's incompleteness theorem took formalistic logic and... more info

• Excellent
  Among the interesting byproducts of feminism and the admission, commencing in 1970, of women to places like Princeton are overall more interesting and "cultured" readings of analytic philosophy and mathematics, before that male ghettos.
  Goldstein, who studied logic and philosophy at Princeton (and who used vignettes from her experience in "The Mind-Body Problem", a novel) met Goedel, and understands the technical details of his work thoroughly. She does a better job, in fact, than Ernest Nagel did in... more info

• Not What I Expected, But . . .
  Probably a better choice for most of us (including me) to read first, which I am glad I did. I was expecting a mathematical book about Goedel's incompleteness theorem, but this is really a biography of Kurt Goedel [Note: 'oe' is the standard substitute for an umlauted 'o' when one doesn't have the option of using the latter, which this text box doesn't provide.]
  Professor Goldstein does provide a simplified explanation of Goedel's incompleteness theorems (there are 2), and a reference to Godel's Proof,... more info

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