Gödel's Solution to Einstein's Field Equations (1949)

"Change becomes possible only through the lapse of time"

Einstein presenting the first Albert Einstein Award to Kurt Gödel and Julian Schwinger in 1951 (Photo: IAS Archive)

Following Kurt Gödel (1906-1978)’s publications on the first- and second incompleteness theorems (1931) and later work on Cantor’s continuum hypothesis (1947), Gödel in 1948 turned his attention to cosmology. In an extensive investigation of Einstein’s field equations, Gödel found one of few known exact solutions, whose implications—the “Gödel universe”—are very peculiar.

Gödel presented his solution to Einstein in the form of a manuscript on the occasion of the latter’s 70th birthday in 1949. Gödel was meant to have his manuscript ready for Paul Arthur Schlipp to include it in a book entitled Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist* (Schlipp, 1949). Gödel, ever the perfectionist, however did not finish his essay until about a month before Einstein’s birthday and even then delayed sending it off for a while (Dawson, 2006). Notorious for his attention to detail, Gödel’s six-…