Gödel at his Prime – Background and Motivation

USP Visiting Professor, A/P Frederick Willerboordse, will be conducting three talks on Gödel’s theorems and Turing machine. We strongly encouraged USP community to join these interesting sessions.

(1^st talk) Can mathematics talk about itself? Are there true theorems that cannot be proven? Can mathematics be complete? These are questions addressed by Gödel’s seminal paper entitled “On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems”. This paper has become one of the most influential works of the 20th century and changed the notions of reasoning about formal systems forever. This first talk will discuss the background, motivation and (without proof) what Gödel’s theorems state.