In 1931 the 25-year-old Austrian logician Kurt Godel published a paper which showed that in any consistent mathematical system rich enough to include the arithmetic of whole numbers there are statements which are true but cannot be proved within the system, and that such a system cannot prove its own consistency. The results destroyed David Hilbert's programme to find a complete and consistent basis for all of mathematics. Godel's method, which coded statements as numbers, influenced Alan Turing's work on computation. Godel later moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he was a close friend of Albert Einstein, and died in 1978.
Before and after
- 19311931 China floods
- 1931Big Bang theory proposed
- 1931Founding of Porsche
- 1931Construction of White Sea – Baltic Canal
- 1931Kurt Godel proves his incompleteness theorems
- c. 1931Global life expectancy reaches 40 years
- 16 January 1931Birth of Johannes Rau
- 1 February 1931Birth of Boris Yeltsin
- 4 February 1931Birth of Isabel Martínez de Perón
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