Can you solve it? Gödel’s incompleteness theorem

The proof that rocked maths

In 1931, the Austrian logician Kurt Godel published his incompleteness theorem, a result widely considered one of the greatest intellectual achievements of modern times.

The theorem states that in any reasonable mathematical system there will always be true statements that cannot be proved. The result was a huge shock to the mathematical community, where the prevailing view was an unshakeable optimism about the power and reach of their subject. It had been assumed that maths was complete", meaning that all mathematical statements are either provable or refutable. The 25-year-old Godel demonstrated this was incorrect by constructing a true statement that was not provable. Maths, he announced, has its limits.