Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Mathematical magic

Sir, — It was gratifying to read the article, "Incompleteness & the Goedelian way" (Feb. 15). We can draw parallels between mathematics and 20th century physics in several ways. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Neils Bohr's quantum theory revolutionised the prevailing concepts in physics. Similarly Goedel's theorem in mathematics shattered the very foundations laid by great mathematical giants such as Bertrand Russell and Hilbert. The popular faith on which mathematics was based — complete and consistent — was demolished by Goedel's theorem. Goldbach's conjecture (every even integer n greater than two is the sum of two primes) is still an unsolved mathematical truth.

C.V.K. Prasada Rao,
Kochi, Kerala

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