Abstract:
In this lecture commemorating the birth of Alfred Tarski and the death of Kurt Gödel, we will compare the eminent founders of modern logic: Kurt Gödel and Alfred Tarski.

Kurt Gödel has been driven by the the possibility that the individual thinking might transgress its own limits. The solutions of mathematical problems are the models, not the aims of his thinking. He strongly believed in the simplicity of all solutions maybe beyond language. Therefore he chose very carefully the next generation scientists with whom he communicated (basically Georg Kreisel, Gaisi Takeuti and Hao Wang).

Alfred Tarski on the other hand grew up in the logical traditions of Poland. He considered logic as a mathematical subject based on a mathematical language, which is very able to contribute to mathematics as algebra, topology etc. He emphasized the formal semantical relations as entailment, satisfaction and truth. He educated many students and influenced not only logic and mathematics but also formal linguistics by his thorough mathematical rigor.

About the speaker:

Matthias Baaz is a world-renowned logician. He studied Mathematical Logic and Astronomy at the University of Vienna and changed to the Vienna University of Technology where he currently serves as chair of computational logic within the Faculty of Mathematics. The main research field of Matthias Baaz is proof theory, but he works also in Gödel logics and Automated Theorem Proving. He has made many contributions in these fields. His main scientific advisor for most of his scientific life has been Georg Kreisel, one of the only three logicians of the next generation Kurt Gödel had an intensive communication with. Matthias Baaz is the Executive Vice President of the Kurt Gödel Society. He has organized many conferences for the Kurt Gödel Society, the largest event being the Vienna Summer of Logic 2014 with more than 2500 participants.