Portrait of Young Gödel

In the summer of 1928, Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) embarked on hislogical journey that would bring him world fame in a mere threeyears. By early 1929, he had solved an outstanding problem in logic,namely the question of the completeness of the axioms and rulesof quantificational logic. He then went on to extend the result tothe axiom system of arithmetic but found, instead of completeness,his famous incompleteness theorem that got published in 1931. It belongsto the most iconic achievements of 20th century science andhas been instrumental in the development of theories of formal languagesand algorithmic computability - two essential componentsin the birth of the information society. This book explores Gödel's way from an exceptional high-schoolstudent to a firmly established young logician. Essays in Gödel'shand from the high school show that his central philosophical andscientific convictions were formed early on, before his universitystudies. Particular emphasis is laid on the course that made Gödelone of the foremost logicians of all times. The scientific biography ofyoung Gödel is followed by English translations from Gödel's GermanGabelsberger shorthand of all his early preserved notebookson logic and related topics.