I Did Not Know and Should Have Known

Posted on 12/14/2004 by Jonathan

That Gödel’s favorite movie was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

This was from one hell’uva interesting article [Chronicle] by Palle Yourgrau excerpted from his forthcoming A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein.

I should also recommend this SEP casual introduction to time machines.

3 thoughts on “I Did Not Know and Should Have Known”

Brendan on 12/20/2004 at 6:21 pm said:

Apparently, it was also a significant movie for Alan Turing. From The Code Book by Simon Singh:

In 1938 [Turing] made a point of seeing the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, containing the memorable scene in which the Wicked Witch dunks an apple in poison. Afterward his colleagues heard Turing continually repeating the macabre chant, “Dip the apple in the brew, Let the sleeping death seep through.”… [Later, over the two years after his homosexuality was revealed publicly,] he became severely depressed, and on June 7, 1954, he went to his bedroom, carrying with him a jar of cyanide solution and an apple…. He dipped the apple in the cyanide and took several bites. At the age of just forty-two, one of the true geniuses of cryptanalysis committed suicide.” (169,189)
Jonathan on 12/20/2004 at 6:23 pm said:

You know, I read, or at least skimmed, that book and didn’t register that anecdote at all.
johnathan goodwin on 2/2/2005 at 6:19 pm said:

my name is jonathan goodwin 2

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