[FOM] Arithmetical soundness of ZFC

[William Messing]

I am  intrigued by the suggestion that ZFC might refute the RH.  Are 
there individuals who are attempting to show this?  RH has a sacrosanct 
status for many mathematicians, at least for number theorists, those 
workimg on automorphic forms, and arithmetic geometers. 

I recall that at the conference for Hodge's retirement from Pembroke 
College in Cambridge in 1973, Gelfand on perhaps his first visit to the 
West, in after dinner conversation expressed the view that the RH might 
be independent of the axioms of ZFC.  Serge Lang went "ballistic" and 
refused to entertain this as a possibility.  I was convinced at the 
time, and remain so, that Lang knew no logic.

William Messing