Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel

by Stephen Budiansky Narrated by Bob Souer

Overview

The first major biography of the logician and mathematician whose incompleteness theorems helped launch a modern scientific revolution.



Nearly a hundred years after its publication, Kurt Gödel's famous proof that every mathematical system must contain propositions that are true-yet never provable-continues to unsettle mathematics, philosophy, and computer science. Yet unlike Einstein, with whom he formed a warm and abiding friendship, Gödel has long escaped all but the most casual scrutiny of his life.



An intimate portrait of the scientific and intellectual circles in prewar Vienna and a vivid re-creation of the early days of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, Journey to the Edge of Reason is the first biography to fully draw upon Gödel's voluminous letters and writings-including a never-before-transcribed shorthand diary of his most intimate thoughts-to explore his profound intellectual friendships, his moving relationship with his mother, his troubled yet devoted marriage, and the debilitating bouts of paranoia that ultimately took his life. It illuminates the mind-bending implications of Gödel's revolutionary ideas for philosophy, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and man's place in the cosmos.

Editorial Reviews

Steven Strogatz

"A brilliant biography of one of the most original thinkers of all time, Journey to the Edge of Reason is as deep and precise as the genius it describes. In a paradox befitting Gödel himself, it takes a tale of logic and its limits and finds, at its heart, something strangely soulful and sympathetic."

Karl Sigmund

"A painstakingly researched and lucidly presented biography—a close-up of one of the most influential and enigmatic thinkers of the twentieth century—full of vivid detail and sharp historical insight."

The New Yorker - Adam Gopnik

"Wonderfully engrossing."

George Dyson

"Kurt Gödel’s mathematical results on incompleteness and undecidable propositions leave it up to us, as individuals, to choose whether to mourn these limits to the power of formal systems, or celebrate his proof that even the most rigid numerical bureaucracy contains the tools by which higher truth will always be able to effect an escape. Stephen Budiansky’s Journey to the Edge of Reason expertly and humanely frames these results between Gödel’s childhood under the dark shadow of the Austrian and Nazi bureaucracies, his escape to America, his descent into physical and mental illness, and his achievement of a reconciliation between spiritual faith and scientific proof."

Sylvia Nasar

"Journey to the Edge of Reason is an intimate and haunting portrait of one of the most elusive gods on Princeton’s Mt. Olympus. A triumph of research and a wonderful read."

starred review Booklist

"Budiansky exposes the social and political influences that shaped the life of this brilliant Austrian mathematician.... But Budiansky’s greater accomplishment is that of penetrating a mind that reoriented the entire mathematical world.... A portrait remarkable for both its intellectual depth and for its compassion."

Jennifer Szalai

"Mesmerizing.... As this vibrant biography so beautifully elucidates, the truth of a life can’t ever be proven; it can only be shown."

The New Yorker

"Expansive ... places [Gödel’s] achievements in their social and political context."

Wall Street Journal - David Edmonds

"[Budiansky] writes vividly, and the book overflows with fascinating detail.... Enthralling."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177351148
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	05/11/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

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