Proof

Kurt Gödel, the crazy genius who was a companion of Einstein at Princeton, is best known for his enormous contribution to logic, the incompleteness principle. Despite reading a full and tedious book about this brilliant man (A World Without Time, by Palle Yourgrau), I have really no idea of how the principle works although it apparently points out some kind of flaw in all logical proofs. But there is to my mind a sort of proof of his belief that there is a flaw in the United States constitution. When Gödel appeared with Einstein at his examination for U.S. citizenship, the examiner told him that as an Austrian immigrant he is lucky the constitution prevents a take-over by a dictator. To Einstein’s consternation, Gödel declared he could prove that the U.S. constitution would indeed allow for the legal rise of a dictator. No one knows how he arrived at that proof, but he was swiftly hushed up at the hearing and was granted his papers. It has been a long time since that incident, but surely the ascendancy of former President Donald T*** provides some sort of proof Gödel was right. (a record of the incident at the hearing can be found here: https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html).