GÖDEL, Kurt

G. was an important mathematician who defined the possibilities of formalization of mathematical theories. He was the son of Rudolf G. (1874-1929), manager of a textile factory in Brno and Maria Handschuh (* 1879). In Brno he attended German secondary modern school excelling with honors in all his subjects. From 1924 on he studied at the University of Vienna. Shortly after the death of his father he asked for the revocation of Czechoslovak citizenship and moved to Austria with his brother, who has lived there since 1925. At the University of Vienna he attended lectures on Theoretical Physics by Hans Thirring and on Mathematics by Paul Furtwängler and Otto Hahn. He was attracted by the neo-positivistic Vienna Circle and especially interested in questions about the foundations of mathematics, logic and philosophy of science. He was significally influenced by Otto Hahn, Karl Menger and Rudolf Carnap. Otto Hahn introduced him to in the Vienna Circle in 1926. In the Vienna Circle Hahn and Carnap in1926/27 initiated a comprehensive analysis of Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus (Leipzig 1921), whence G. obtained the incentive for his work in 1929/30, in which he dealt with his two incompleteness theorems. In 1929 he completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of Vienna. In it, Gödel established the completeness of the first-order predicate calculus. He remained at the University, where he was offered the position of private docent by Hahn in 1933. Living in Vienna was crucial for G.’s scientific career. The majority of his most important works were published in 1930s. While attending Menger’s colloquium he met Alfred Tarski and thus established contact with the Polish logicians. Already in 1932 he was in contact with Oswald Veblen, who later founded the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (the USA). When G. in 1938 applied for a different position at the Vienna University his application was turned down so he left for the USA, where he taught at Princeton and researched until his death. After World War II he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by several American universities and he declined honorary membership of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (in 1966). G. was awarded the first Albert Einstein Award in 1951 for his solutions to Albert Einstein's field equations in general relativity which led to the »Gödel Universe«.