“Fifty years ago Kurt Gödel… proved that the world of pure mathematics is inexhaustible. … I hope that the notion of a final statement of the laws of physics will prove as illusory as the notion of a formal decision process for all mathematics.”

—  Freeman Dyson , book Infinite in All Directions

Source: Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 3 : Manchester and Athens
Context: Fifty years ago Kurt Gödel... proved that the world of pure mathematics is inexhaustible. … I hope that the notion of a final statement of the laws of physics will prove as illusory as the notion of a formal decision process for all mathematics. If it should turn out that the whole of physical reality can be described by a finite set of equations, I would be disappointed, I would feel that the Creator had been uncharacteristically lacking in imagination.

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Freeman Dyson 90
theoretical physicist and mathematician 1923

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