So here's a curious mathematical fact, due to Kurt Goedel

Goedel is known for a few mind-blowers but this is my favourite: no computable system of logic can be both consistent and complete.

In lay terms, this says that there are unprovable things which are nonetheless true, under any reasonable set of logical rules you care to dream up. You can't define logical deduction in any way which avoids this.

And yes you're right about proofs - for example Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is truly understood by only a few thousand people at most on the planet (I am not one of them - I get the gist but not the detail).

Posted By: Old Man, Nov 2, 18:15:36