Godel

[Solitary]

Interesting:

Many people cite the work of logician Kurt Gödel as support for their own brand of relativism. They claim, for example, that Gödel proved that there exist true statements which cannot be proved from within any logical system and conclude that something they dearly want to be true is true even though it cannot be proven so.

The problem is, they actually just end up misrepresenting and misunderstanding Gödel's work. That work is about mathematics, not life generally, and it's a statement about the foundations of mathematics itself.  

Jordan Ellenberg wrote in Slate:

[W]hat's most startling about Gödel's theorem, given its conceptual importance, is not how much it's changed mathematics, but how little. No theoretical physicist could start a career today without a thorough understanding of Einstein's and Heisenberg's contributions. But most pure mathematicians can easily go through life with only a vague acquaintance with Gödel's work. So far, I've done it myself.

 What is it about Gödel's theorem that so captures the imagination? Probably that its oversimplified plain-English form--"There are true things which cannot be proved"--is naturally appealing to anyone with a remotely romantic sensibility. Call it "the curse of the slogan": Any scientific result that can be approximated by an aphorism is ripe for misappropriation.

 The precise mathematical formulation that is Gödel's theorem doesn't really say "there are true things which cannot be proved" any more than Einstein's theory means "everything is relative, dude, it just depends on your point of view." And it certainly doesn't say anything directly about the world outside mathematics... Yet, Gödel is routinely deployed by people with antirationalist agendas as a stick to whack any offending piece of science that happens by.

The next time you see anyone using Gödel's ideas for anything at all, but especially for anything outside of mathematics, ask if they actually understand what they are talking about. Chances are, they don't. Unfortunately, you may have trouble communicating that to the person in question -- it's gotten to the point where misrepresentations of Gödel are more common and popular than Gödel himself.

:roll:  Solitary

[Jason78]

Gödel's work has practical applications in computer science.  Alan Turing built on a lot of his work to give us the kind of computers we have today.

Edit:  But then I guess you could describe computer science as a sub branch of practical maths.