HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015892.jpg

202 Are the Androids Dreaming Yet? vi TNUNGS ME HMGA Kénigsberg Bridges Gédel Gédel studied mathematics at Konigsberg University, Hilbert’s hometown. Kénigsberg is famous for having a mathematical problem related to the seven bridges that link the city together. It’s quite fun to try to solve. Find a route across the city that crosses each bridge once and once only. You can start anywhere, but no walking halfway over a bridge and no swimming! Euler discovered a rigorous mathematical proof that there can be no solution in 1735 after five hundred years of failure by other mathematicians. The answer is you cannot. In 1931 Kurt Gédel, then working at the University of Vienna, proved mathematics is like our sporting analogy. There are true statements in mathematics that cannot be proven by the rules of the system. Someone outside the system, with common sense, can see a statement is true, but it’s impossible to prove this if you constrain yourself inside the system. It is the equivalent of all the members of the London Marathon Committee wondering what to do about the race while all of us watching the TV are shouting, “It’s a draw!” Looking at the rulebook ‘really hard’ doesn't help. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015892