This definitive biography of the logician and philosopher Kurt Godel is the first in-depth account to integrate details of his personal life with his work and is based on the author's intensive study of Godel's papers and surviving correspondence. Godel (1906-1978) is considered to be the preeminent logic researcher of the twentieth century.

His noted works on the completeness of first-order logic, the incompleteness of formal number theory, and the relative consistency of the Axiom of Choice and the Continuum Hypothesis established bounds on the efficacy of formal methods in investigating foundational questions. He is also noted for his unique and distinctive writings on the philosophy behind mathematics, and his lesser-known results in cosmology raised problematic issues in the philosophy of time. Dawson, a logician and historian of science, examines the life of this driven man whose work on the foundation of mathematics has fundamentally changed our thoughts on these subjects and has stimulated much of the research conducted in this century.

He further explores the relationship between Godel's personality and his scientific achievements and describes the impact Godel's results have had on our modern world view.