Kurt Gödel, the man who ruined mathematics, was one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. He was born in 1906, smack-bang in the middle of the greatest crisis that maths has ever known.

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which proved that no formal mathematical system can demonstrate every mathematical truth, is a landmark of modern thought. It's a simple but profound statement, but the ...

Peter Woit's review of Max Tegmark's "Our Mathematical Universe" (Books, Jan. 18) emphasizes the role of math in physics but leaves out the work of 1930s mathematician Kurt Gödel and his ...