This second volume of a comprehensive edition of Kurt Godel's works collects the remainder of his published work, covering the period 1938-1974. (Volume I included all of his publications from 1929-1936). Each article or closely related group of articles is preceded by an introductory note that elucidates it and places it in historical context.
Kurt Godel was the most outstanding logician of the
twentieth century, famous for his work on the completeness
of logic, the incompleteness of number theory, and the
consistency of the axiom of choice and the continuum
hypothesis. He is also noted for his work on constructivity,
the decision problem, and the foundations of computation
theory, as well as for the strong individuality of his
writings on the philosophy of mathematics. Less well-known
is his discovery of unusual cosmological models for
Einstein's equations, permitting "time-travel" into the
past.
This second volume of a comprehensive edition of
Godel's works collects together all his publications from
1938 to 1974. Together with Volume I (Publications
1929-1936), it makes available for the first time in a
single source all of his previously published work.
Continuing the format established in the earlier volume, the
present text includes introductory notes that provide
extensive explanatory and historical commentary on each of
the papers, a facing English translation of the one German
original, and a complete bibliography. Succeeding volumes
are to contain unpublished manuscripts, lectures,
correspondence, and extracts from the notebooks.
Collected Works is designed to be accessible and
useful to as wide an audience as possible without
sacrificing scientific or historical accuracy. The only
complete edition available in English, it will be an
essential part of the working library of professionals and
students in logic, mathematics, philosophy, history of
science, and computer science. These volumes will also
interest scientists and all others who wish to be acquainted
with one of the great minds of the twentieth century.
This is the second volume of this impressive series of Gödel's works ... this second volume of his published works is really fundamental, as it was only in this period that Gödel decided to make public some traits of his philosophical position ... The introductory note to these writings, by R. Solovay, seems to me historically and technically superb. I congratulate the editorial team for including in this volume the improved 1972 version of the Dialectica paper of 1958 on finitary mathematics ... As a whole, the book is absolutely indispensable for anyone interested in Gödel's ideas, or generally on the history and philosophy of logic and mathematics.
