Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem

In 1900, in Paris, the International Congress of Mathematicians gathered in a mood of hope and fear. The edifice of maths was grand and ornate but its foundations had been shaken. They were deemed to be inconsistent and possibly paradoxical.

At the conference, a young man called David Hilbert set out a plan to rebuild the foundations of maths – to make them consistent, all encompassing and without any hint of a paradox.

Hilbert was one of the greatest mathematicians that ever lived, but his plan failed spectacularly because of Kurt Gödel.

Gödel proved that there were some problems in maths that were impossible to solve, that the bright clear plain of mathematics was in fact a labyrinth filled with potential paradox.

In doing so, Gödel changed the way we understand what mathematics is, and the implications of his work in physics and philosophy take us to the very edge of what we can know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHD08tI0T30&index=1&list=RDmHD08tI0T30

https://wiki.c2.com/?GoedelsTheorem https://wiki.c2.com/?GoedelsIncompletenessTheorem https://wiki.c2.com/?GoedelsIncompletenessConsequences