Paul Bernays secured his reputation with a classic treatise on mathematical logic, the Foundations of Mathematics, and through his refinement and consolidation of set theory into the von Neumann-Bernays system. Bernays was a platonic mathematician--one who thought of the world of mathematics as separate from the world of material reality. Although Bernays's concept of mathematics as a mental product meant that no system could be designated as right or wrong, he believed that there were truths within the mathematical realm that allowed for a system to remain consistent and logical within itself.

Paul Isaac Bernays was born in London on October 17, 1888, to Julius Bernays, a Swiss businessman from a prominent Jewish family, and Sara Bernays. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Paris and then to Berlin, where Bernays studied from 1895 to 1907. While studying engineering at the Technische Hochschule (Technical High School) in Charlottenburg, Germany, he developed...