Il dio della logica

A vivid, faithful portrayal of Kurt Gödel, one of history’s most fascinating mathematicians.

English sample available

The end-of-century edition of Time magazine named him “Mathematician of the Century”. Even logicians, past and present, state that only Aristotle is his contender for supremacy in the field. Albert Einstein said in his later years that he would go to the office purely for the privilege of strolling back home with him. But Kurt Gödel was a lot more than that. Tormented by problems of mental instability all his life, he was a fierce misanthropist. Alongside recognition and fame came persecution mania. He was not only obsessive in his eating but paranoid, terrified that somebody might poison him. So much so that in 1978, at the age of seventy-two, he let himself die of malnutrition when his wife was hospitalised for a few months so could not cook for him. In any case, Gödel was first and foremost a genius: we owe him some of the research that has had a major influence on our lives and society. Just think that his theories on incompleteness influenced the work of Alan Turing, the protagonist of the multi award-winning film The Imitation Game, and led to the invention of the computer.