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I once read somewhere that, in the beginning of the XXth century -if I'm not mistaken- a scientist saw his whole assumptions or theory utterly refuted by the publication of a book by a mathematician... I don't remember exactly if the first one was a mathematician too, or a physicist, but it resulted in him realising his whole work was worth nothing and he later gave up doing his research.
My memories are pretty vague about this story: can someone tell me what I'm referring to, if possible ? Does this story ring a bell ?

Thanks.
Seb

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You could be thinking of the mathematician Frege. His logicist programme was destroyed by Russell's Paradox. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logicism.

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  • $\begingroup$ And Rusell's project was demolished by Gödel's $\endgroup$
    – Mauricio
    Commented Aug 31 at 8:38
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    $\begingroup$ The statement in the previous comment is not true. What Godel's results demolished was "Hilbert's program". $\endgroup$
    – Alexandre Eremenko
    Commented Aug 31 at 13:27
  • $\begingroup$ @AlexandreEremenko I would say both $\endgroup$
    – Mauricio
    Commented Sep 2 at 9:52
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    $\begingroup$ @Mauricio I would say that Russel and Whitehead approach still holds, though it lost its popularity. $\endgroup$
    – Alexandre Eremenko
    Commented Sep 2 at 13:28

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