Sixty years after Gödel (Q1178182): Difference between revisions

In 1930 Gödel announced his results on completeness and consistency. The author recounts the mathematical, logical, and philosophical settings that were so surprised by G's discoveries. Though O. Veblen is cited as having declared in 1925 that there was as yet no adequate logic, it was the Göttingen school centered on Hilbert, and not the American school, that has a clear conception of the issues involved in decidability and completeness and which influenced Gödel the most. A sample of the diverse reactions to G's ideas is outlined, featuring especially Zermelo's. The author points out that G's results have not yet found fruitful acceptance by most mathematicians and he conjectures that perhaps such acceptance will come when some ``central problem of analysis, such as the Riemann Hypothesis, is shown to be undecidable''.