28 April 09

Kurt Gödel was born on this date in 1902. He eventually became one of the most influential mathematicians and logicians of the early and mid-20th century. His most important contribution was the proof of the "incompleteness theorem" which states that for any system of axioms (basic assumptions) powerful enough to explain all the operations of basic arithmetic, there are true propositions about the natural numbers that cannot be proved from the axioms. Put very loosely, he proved that not everything in mathematics could be proven. I chose this tie to honor Gödel because its endless tangle of Looney Tunes® characters represents for me the "openness" of a system that always set its own limits by closing cartoons with the words "That's All, Folks!"