Kurt Godel/Talk

Was Kurt really Austrian-born? I think this will always be problematic. You could probably also say he was Czech-born or Austro-Hungarian-born. As far as I know Brunn was at that time part of Austria which was in turn part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. I'm not sure how Czech or Austrian the parents of Kurt were (or considered themselves) but the fact that he was sent to a German-speaking school may be a hint. Anyway, if you think you have good arguments to change this, please do. :-)

-- Jan Hidders July 10 2001

I don't know German very well but is Der Herr Warum correct ?
--Kpjas

I speak a little German, (I watched a lot of Sesamstrasse as a child :-)) and it is certainly correct. You can check for yourself:

• http://www.math.ucla.edu/~rfioresi/hc41/Goedel.html
• http://www.math.twsu.edu/history/Men/godel.html

-- JanHidders

What is Goedel Number ? Taw

A Goedel numbering is a scheme (with certain nice properties) which associates logical formulas with numbers, so that instead of talking about strings like "(phi or psi) -> tau " you could talk about numbers that prepresent them instead. Once a particular Goedel numbering is fixed, a Goedel number of a particular logical formula/statement is the natural number that represents it according to the numbering. Why? --AV

Because some page on wiki (Light Bulb Jokes) has link named Goedel Number that points to Kurt Godel page. Taw

The links would best point to Godels Incompleteness Theorem where the concept is explained. Or we could write a separate article. --AxelBoldt

I'd support a separate article, it will make linking easier, and sometime somebody may want to talk about Godel numbers without getting into the whole incompleteness theorem. Perhaps the [Godel Number]? page could just be a semi-short definition with links to Kurt Godel, and to the Incompleteness theorem, that way if there are other uses for Godel numbers than the proof of the incompleteness theorem we could have links to those pages as well. It certianly seems like there should be other uses for Godel numbers, but this is not my area and I don't really know anything about them... MRC

You're right, there're other uses, although they may be too advanced for Wikipedia. I agree that it should be a (short) article on its own. --AV