Box 6c, folder 81, Kurt Gödel Papers, the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center,
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA, on deposit at Princeton University Library.
With support from a grant by the Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich, I was able to have this notebook
transcribed by an expert in Gabelsberger stenography, Dr. Erich Ruff, with an English translation
by Prof. Marilya Veteto Reese. I also would like to express my deep thanks to
Dr. Christian Fleck of the University of Graz for supporting my grant application and facilitating the project.
The transcription and translation of a shorthand text are
inescapably works in progress, and I welcome corrections and
suggestions.
Lecture to the Philosophical Society of New York University, April 18, 1934
Box 7b, folder 30, Kurt Gödel Papers, the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center,
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA, on deposit at Princeton University Library
Gödel’s invited talk to the NYU Philosophical Society is the clearest explanation I have seen anywhere
of his famous Incompleteness Theorem. It remains, however, virtually unknown.
Of particular interest are the introductory pages where he lays out the basic concept and approach
of his theorem with great simplicity and clarity for a general audience.
The complete family letters of Kurt Gödel, 1940–1975
In the course of my research I worked with Dr. Marilya Veteto Reese to translate into English all 280 or so
of Gödel’s letters to his family. They capture his gentle humor and great human
kindness as he speaks about life at the Institute for Advanced Study, friendship with Einstein, interests ranging
from Goethe and Shakespeare to Snow White and Skee-Ball, religious views, and at times very odd ideas about events
and the real world—well reflecting his friend Oskar Morgenstern’s assessment, “He is such a strange mix of depth
and otherworldliness.”
I am making the complete translated letters, presented with extensive contextual notes and introductions, available
as a free pdf at the link below; a paperback version is also available for purchase for $18.95.
The only known extant recording of Gödel's voice, a birthday greeting he made in 1949 for his mother
Credits
Images of documents: (1) and (2) Kurt Gödel Papers, the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center,
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA, on deposit at Princeton University Library; (3) Briefe von Kurt Gödel, Digital Wienbibliothek
Sound recording: Kurt Gödel – Ein mathematischer Mythos, DVD video, Österreichischer Rundfunk, 1986
