
Journey to the Edge of Reason
The Life of Kurt Gödel
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Narrated by:
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Bob Souer
About this listen
The first major biography of the logician and mathematician whose incompleteness theorems helped launch a modern scientific revolution.
Nearly a hundred years after its publication, Kurt Gödel's famous proof that every mathematical system must contain propositions that are true - yet never provable - continues to unsettle mathematics, philosophy, and computer science. Yet unlike Einstein, with whom he formed a warm and abiding friendship, Gödel has long escaped all but the most casual scrutiny of his life.
An intimate portrait of the scientific and intellectual circles in prewar Vienna and a vivid re-creation of the early days of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, Journey to the Edge of Reason is the first biography to fully draw upon Gödel's voluminous letters and writings - including a never-before-transcribed shorthand diary of his most intimate thoughts - to explore his profound intellectual friendships, his moving relationship with his mother, his troubled yet devoted marriage, and the debilitating bouts of paranoia that ultimately took his life. It illuminates the mind-bending implications of Gödel's revolutionary ideas for philosophy, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and man's place in the cosmos.
©2021 Stephen Budiansky (P)2021 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Bertrand Russell wrote that mathematics can exalt "as surely as poetry". This is especially true of one equation: ei(pi) + 1 = 0, the brainchild of Leonhard Euler, the Mozart of mathematics. More than two centuries after Euler's death, it is still regarded as a conceptual diamond of unsurpassed beauty. Called Euler's identity, or God's equation, it includes just five numbers but represents an astonishing revelation of hidden connections.
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Good treatment of the subject
- By Kindle Customer on 04-09-18
By: David Stipp
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The Polymath
- A Cultural History from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag
- By: Peter Burke
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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From Leonardo Da Vinci to John Dee and Comenius, from George Eliot to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge in countless ways. But history can be unkind to scholars with such encyclopaedic interests. All too often these individuals are remembered for just one part of their valuable achievements. In this engaging, erudite account, renowned cultural historian Peter Burke argues for a more rounded view.
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A good book ruined by the narrator
- By LOVA on 08-31-23
By: Peter Burke
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The Theory That Would Not Die
- How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
- By: Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne here explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it.
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Who is the intended audience?
- By Billy on 07-21-14
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Conquering the Electron
- The Geniuses, Visionaries, Egomaniacs, and Scoundrels Who Built Our Electronic Age
- By: Derek Cheung, Eric Brach
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Want to know how AT&T's Bell Labs developed semiconductor technology - and how its leading scientists almost came to blows in the process? Want to understand how radio and television work - and why RCA drove their inventors to financial ruin and early graves? Conquering the Electron offers these stories and more, presenting each revolutionary technological advance right alongside blow-by-blow personal battles that all too often took place.
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Tech, science, engineering & the people behind it.
- By James S. on 05-29-20
By: Derek Cheung, and others
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Infinite Powers
- How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe
- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves. Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes "backwards" sometimes; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.
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Not written to be read aloud
- By A Reader in Maine on 02-21-20
By: Steven Strogatz
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From Bacteria to Bach and Back
- The Evolution of Minds
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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What is human consciousness, and how is it possible? This question fascinates thinking people from poets and painters to physicists, psychologists, and philosophers. From Bacteria to Bach and Back is Daniel C. Dennett's brilliant answer, extending perspectives from his earlier work in surprising directions, exploring the deep interactions of evolution, brains, and human culture.
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The only other review was so bad that I wrote this
- By Adam on 02-13-17
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When Einstein Walked with Gödel
- Excursions to the Edge of Thought
- By: Jim Holt
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection, Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who’ve tried to encompass the latter with the former. With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot.
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A good overview of scientific theory
- By MJ Walters on 09-11-18
By: Jim Holt
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An Introduction to Information Theory
- Symbols, Signals and Noise
- By: John R. Pierce
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Behind the familiar surfaces of the telephone, radio, and television lies a sophisticated and intriguing body of knowledge known as information theory. This is the theory that has permitted the rapid development of all sorts of communication, from color television to the clear transmission of photographs from the vicinity of Jupiter. Even more revolutionary progress is expected in the future.
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Not bad, but...
- By Jane Doe on 06-26-20
By: John R. Pierce
What listeners say about Journey to the Edge of Reason
Highly rated for:
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- chetyarbrough.blog
- 11-12-22
EDUCATION AND FREEDOM
Stephen Budiansky offers a biography of one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. His name was Kurt Gödel.
It is the biographic details and good writing that make “Journey to the Edge of Reason” interesting. Budiansky sets a table for what becomes Gödel’s life.
Budiansky explains the history of Austria before WWI and WWII. Gödel’s family lives an upper-middleclass life when their son Kurt is born. That lifestyle is interrupted by WWI and destroyed by WWII. In the mid-19th century, the Austro-Hungarian empire, particularly Vienna, is a center for education and culture in Europe. Unlike much of the continent, equality of opportunity, regardless of religion and ethnicity, were available in the Austro-Hungarian' capitol of Vienna. For a short time, Vienna became a magnate for Jewish immigrants seeking education and opportunity.
A striking fact in Budiansky's biography of Gödel is how many geniuses came to America from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Without its education system, the Viennese equal opportunity, and the attraction of western freedom, the advance of science and its role in the world would be diminished.
As a non-mathematician one may not understand the importance of Gödel’s theory, but Budiansky does a great service to the public by writing Gödel’s biography.
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- J.A.MANOHARAN
- 10-25-21
Highly recommended
This is a beautiful telling of the story of one of the greatest logicians of all time. It gives you a wholesome picture of this enigmatic and extraordinary genius. I recommend it in particular for the details it gives about Austrian society prior to WWII and the story behind the origins of IAS Princeton.
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2 people found this helpful
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- lucas cantor
- 09-26-21
Fantastically done!
A great audiobook. This is an accessible, insightful and thoroughly researched book about one of the most important mathematicians in history.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kat'm
- 07-23-22
Great listening
Loved it! Although I thought the first chapters focused too much on Austrian history.
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- James Orlin
- 04-28-22
Interesting story of a great mathematician
The book was fairly interesting, although I think that there was much too much discussion in the early chapters about Austrian politics prior to Godel's birth.
The narrator was fairly good. His pronunciation was, in general, good with a notable exception. He misprounounced the name of John von Neumann as "von newman". This wouldn't have been so bad if von Neumann's name hadn't appeared around 100 times in the book.
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5 people found this helpful
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- George Reid
- 12-23-21
good history of the context where Goedel lived
very enjoyable narrative of the context in which Kurt Goedel lived his life and made profound contributions to mathematical logic. The author gives a sympathetic treatment of a man who had serious mental problems throughout his adult life. it is clear from his rendering of Goedel's life that many more discoveries may still be buried in his notebooks written in Gabelsberger shorthand.
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- Lynn R. Davis
- 04-02-23
helps if you have an interest in logic and math
very interesting to me, having studied Godel's proof in college to learn more about the times, human environment and the person responsible for this most significant finding.
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- Amit Lubling
- 07-15-24
Excellent
This was a great book but made more so by some excellent chapters and digressions that were not about Godel. For instance there is an excellent chapter on the history of the Austro Hungarian empire.
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- M. Ziff
- 11-01-22
Gödel's Incompleteness
I love bios on recent and not so recent Big Thinkers. Mostly physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers. Often times the figures' personal lives, their contemporaries, the environment which they grew up and worked in have a wonderful way of making more sense of their life's work. It's been said that if you want to understand a 'Big Thinkers' psychology, look at their lives. Their work is an amalgamation of their (Big P) Personalities.
Journey to the Edge of Reason puts Gödel in context. The only problem is that Gödel is/was of a stiff, impenetrable nature. While open and of a big heart, not that of a malicious intention, is a quiet and reserved by nature. I am not a Gödel-head so I cannot speak to other attempts at adding depth to Gödel's life and work, better books might be out there. But from the view of this book, which has been the most recent, Mr. Gödel is an incomplete entity. Not by design or any intentional obfuscation, the man was ethereal. The contemporaneous sketches all have a vague feeling of curiosity and of a shaky questioning nature.
It seems like a real zinger, but, until all of his dense shorthand notes are translated and organized, his story - the "real" story that gives ample depth and understanding, for now, is sadly Incomplete.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Ron Miles
- 12-20-21
Souer read beautifully
A great book beautifully read. I think Souer has a rare, perfect reading voice and perfect pronunciation
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