MATHEMATICIAN

Kurt Gödel

1906 - 1978

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Kurt Friedrich Gödel ( GUR-dəl; German: [kʊʁt ˈɡøːdl̩] ; April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel profoundly influenced scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century (at a time when Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, and David Hilbert were using logic and set theory to investigate the foundations of mathematics), building on earlier work by Frege, Richard Dedekind, and Georg Cantor. Gödel's discoveries in the foundations of mathematics led to the proof of his completeness theorem in 1929 as part of his dissertation to earn a doctorate at the University of Vienna, and the publication of Gödel's incompleteness theorems two years later, in 1931. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Kurt Gödel has received more than 4,366,556 page views. His biography is available in 94 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 92 in 2019). Kurt Gödel is the 37th most popular mathematician (down from 35th in 2019), the 22nd most popular biography from Czechia (up from 52nd in 2019) and the most popular Czech Mathematician.

Kurt Gödel is most famous for his incompleteness theorems, which state that any logical system that is powerful enough to describe arithmetic will contain statements that are true but cannot be proven.

Memorability Metrics

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    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 94

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 7.91

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.02

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among MATHEMATICIANS

Among mathematicians, Kurt Gödel ranks 37 out of 1,004Before him are Diophantus, Gerolamo Cardano, Georg Cantor, Ada Lovelace, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, and Augustin-Louis Cauchy. After him are Johann Bernoulli, Emmy Noether, Pope Sylvester II, Gottlob Frege, George Boole, and Charles Sanders Peirce.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1906, Kurt Gödel ranks 10Before him are Dmitri Shostakovich, Grace Hopper, Samuel Beckett, Puyi, Luchino Visconti, and Aristotle Onassis. After him are Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten, Albert Hofmann, Maria Goeppert Mayer, Victor Vasarely, Josephine Baker, and Hassan al-Banna. Among people deceased in 1978, Kurt Gödel ranks 6Before him are Pope John Paul I, Golda Meir, Pope Paul VI, Aram Khachaturian, and Santiago Bernabéu Yeste. After him are Aldo Moro, Jacques Brel, Giorgio de Chirico, Manne Siegbahn, Adolf Dassler, and Umberto Nobile.

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In Czechia

Among people born in Czechia, Kurt Gödel ranks 22 out of 1,200Before him are Alphonse Mucha (1860), Ferdinand Porsche (1875), John of Nepomuk (1350), Karel Čapek (1890), Wilhelm Steinitz (1836), and Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583). After him are Joseph Schumpeter (1883), Bertha von Suttner (1843), Ernst Mach (1838), Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850), Joseph Radetzky von Radetz (1766), and Miloš Forman (1932).

Among MATHEMATICIANS In Czechia

Among mathematicians born in Czechia, Kurt Gödel ranks 1After him are Leo Perutz (1882), Johannes Widmann (1460), Johann Radon (1887), Olga Taussky-Todd (1906), and Eduard Čech (1893).