Did the mathematician Kurt Gödel really starve himself to death because he was paranoid that he was in danger of being poisoned?
2 Answers
Alaka Halder, Princeton University '15
Updated 239w ago · Upvoted by David Joyce, Ph.D. Mathematics, University of Pennsylvania (1979) and Alon Amit, PhD in Mathematics; Mathcircler. · Author has 310 answers and 1.8m answer views
Yes. Toward the end of his life, Kurt Gödel was ill and mentally unstable. He suffered from persecutory delusions [1], or as you put it, a paranoid fear that someone would poison him.
Kurt and Adele Gödel
He trusted only his wife, Adele, and would eat the food she prepared for him (or alternatively, she would taste any provided food before he ate it). When she became ill in 1977 and had to be hospitalized for six months, Gödel refused to eat, and eventually died of malnutrition in 1978 at the age of 71 [2]. When he died, he weighed only 30kg. Given his height of ~5'6", this meant that he had a BMI of 10.6 (<18.5 is considered underweight, and potentially dangerous). Adele died in 1981.
Sources
[1] Encyclopedia Brittanica - Kurt Godel (American mathematician)
[2] Toates, Frederick; Olga Coschug Toates (2002). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Practical Tried-and-Tested Strategies to Overcome OCD. Class Publishing. p. 221.ISBN 978-1-85959-069-0.
[3] Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel
by Rebecca Goldstein
W. W. Norton: 2005. 288 pp. $22.95
[4] A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein
by Palle Yourgrau
Basic Books/Allen Lane: 2005. 224 pp. $24/£20
He trusted only his wife, Adele, and would eat the food she prepared for him (or alternatively, she would taste any provided food before he ate it). When she became ill in 1977 and had to be hospitalized for six months, Gödel refused to eat, and eventually died of malnutrition in 1978 at the age of 71 [2]. When he died, he weighed only 30kg. Given his height of ~5'6", this meant that he had a BMI of 10.6 (<18.5 is considered underweight, and potentially dangerous). Adele died in 1981.
Sources
[1] Encyclopedia Brittanica - Kurt Godel (American mathematician)
[2] Toates, Frederick; Olga Coschug Toates (2002). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Practical Tried-and-Tested Strategies to Overcome OCD. Class Publishing. p. 221.ISBN 978-1-85959-069-0.
[3] Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel
by Rebecca Goldstein
W. W. Norton: 2005. 288 pp. $22.95
[4] A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein
by Palle Yourgrau
Basic Books/Allen Lane: 2005. 224 pp. $24/£20
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