Have you read the paper?

Yes. Of course.

Of course?

I’ve read practically all of Gödel’s papers. Most of the notes. Including those written in Gabelsberger.

What is that?

It’s the shorthand that Gödel used. In keeping with his other idiosyncrasies. It’s nineteenth century German. Maybe eighteenth, I dont know.

How long did it take you to learn it?

Longer than I would have thought. Gödel was smart, but among other things he was a mathematical platonist and I wanted to know why. To me the idea was simply incoherent. But then I didnt really know how smart Gödel was.

Now I’m not even sure I know what that means. Mathematical platonist.

What it sounds like? It’s usually called realism nowadays. It supposedly expresses a belief in the existence of mathematical entities independent of the human mind. It’s a belief common to older mathematicians and to me it just seemed full of holes. If mathematical objects exist independently of human thought what else are they independent of? The universe, I suppose. When you solve a problem there is always the compelling sense that the solution was there and that you have discovered it. Besides which it has a certain empirical weight to it in that other mathematicians will agree with you that the answer is correct. If it is.

And I suppose this has at least something to do with your understanding of reality in general.

Well. You can spend a lot of time categorizing realities. Their correspondences. We probably dont want to start down that road.

All right. I dont know that much about Gödel. I know that he had a famous theory that mathematics couldnt solve all the questions it posed. Or something like that.

Something like that, yes. Two theorems. In 1931.

Is that a theory you agree with?

Of course. The paper explaining them is brilliant. It’s beyond argument. In his later years Gödel drifted away from mathematics into philosophy. Then he went crazy.

How crazy?

Pretty bad. He wouldnt eat. Thought the food was poisoned. When he died he weighed about seventy pounds. Oppenheimer was head of IAS at the time and he would go over to see him in the hospital. One day the doctor came in. He didnt know who Gödel was—just some nutty professor from the university—and Oppenheimer told him to take good care of Gödel because he was the greatest logician since Aristotle. And the doctor nodded and began to edge toward the door and Oppenheimer realized that he was thinking: Good God, now there’s two of them.

His theory. Is it true that it cast doubt over the legitimacy of mathematics? Is that why it’s famous?

No. That’s all nonsense. It may have started with von Neumann. He was present at Gödel’s presentation to the Vienna Circle and when Gödel finished reading the papers von Neumann said: It’s all over.

Von Neumann said that.

Yes.

But it wasnt.

No. It wasnt. Well, something was over. Not least being a number of Hilbert’s problems from 1900.