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As headlines go, it’s certainly an eye-catching one. “Scientists Prove Existence of God,” German daily Die Welt wrote last week. But unsurprisingly, there is a rather significant caveat to that claim. In fact, what the researchers in question say they have actually proven is a theorem put forward by renowned Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel—and the real news isn’t about a Supreme Being, but rather what can now be achieved in scientific fields using superior technology. … When Gödel died in 1978, he left behind a tantalizing theory based on principles of modal logic—that a higher being must exist. … That...

GÖDEL AND THE NATURE OF MATHEMATICAL TRUTH II [7.27.05]A Talk with Verena Huber-Dyson I doubt that pure philosophical discourse can get us anywhere. Maybe phenomenological narrative backed by psychological and anthropological investigations can shed some light on the nature of Mathematical Truth. As to Beauty in mathematics and the sciences, here speaks Sophocles' eyewitness in Antigone: "..... Why should I make it soft for you with tales to prove myself a liar? Truth is Right." Princeton, 1950sEinstein & Gödel Photo by Oskar Morgenstern, Institute of Advanced Study Archives A true Realist, a true Platonist will not stoop to choose...

February 14, 2005CONNECTIONSTruth, Incompleteness and the Gödelian Way By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN John Patrick NaughtonRebecca Goldstein's new book is about the mathematician Kurt Gödel. elativity. Incompleteness. Uncertainty. Is there a more powerful modern Trinity? These reigning deities proclaim humanity's inability to thoroughly explain the world. They have been the touchstones of modernity, their presence an unwelcome burden at first, and later, in the name of postmodernism, welcome company.Their rule has also been affirmed by their once-sworn enemy: science. Three major discoveries in the 20th century even took on their names. Albert Einstein's famous Theory (Relativity), Kurt Gödel's famous Theorem (Incompleteness)...