Canonical · Logic & Mathematics · Paper

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems

Kurt Gödel · 1931

"Any formal system powerful enough to describe arithmetic contains true statements it can never prove, and it can't even prove its own consistency."

The idea

Gödel was 25 when he proved something unsettling about mathematics: any system rich enough to do arithmetic will always contain true statements it can't prove from within.

Why it works

The takeaway — recall it first

Bayes' Theorem

"Belief should update in proportion to evidence — Bayes' theorem is the exact math for how much a new piece of evidence should move your confidence."

Thomas Bayes (published by Richard Price) · ModelContinue→