This nagging suspicion—that their entire kingdom rested on nothing—came to be known as the “crisis of the foundations of mathematics,” and it was the most profound questioning of the discipline since the time of the Greeks. The crisis was a strange affair that involved some of the most original thinkers and brightest minds on this planet, but when I look back on it, it seems no more than an Arthurian quest, one where reason strayed past its limits only to find itself holding an empty chalice.
