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Furchtbar Herzig

[Kurt] Gödel, who has often been called the greatest logician since Aristotle, was a strange and ultimately tragic man. Whereas Einstein was gregarious and full of laughter, Gödel was solemn, solitary, and pessimistic. Einstein, a passionate amateur violinist, loved Beethoven and Mozart. Gödel’s taste ran in another direction: his favorite movie was Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and when his wife put a pink flamingo in their front yard he pronounced it furchtbar herzig—“awfully charming.”

[Jim Holt, "Time Bandits: What Were Einstein and Gödel Talking About?", The New Yorker, 21 February 2005.]

Posted on September 14, 2005 at 09.44 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Common-Place Book

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