Engineer, architect, and one of the most influential analytic and linguistic philosophers of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was born in Vienna, Austria, on April 26 and died a few days after his sixty-second birthday in Cambridge, England, on April 29. Although seldom emphasized in works about the philosopher, Wittgenstein's life was deeply engaged with technology. He studied mechanical engineering in Berlin and aeronautical engineering in Manchester, England, securing the patent for a propeller in 1911. He also conducted combustion chamber research and his ideas were used for helicopter engines after World War II. Even after abandoning his engineering career, Wittgenstein's engineering education continued to exercise an influence on his philosophical work.

Wittgenstein began his career as a philosopher in 1912 after reading Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead's Principia Mathematica (Volume I, 1910). The logical foundations of mathematics was one of the most important philosophical issues of the day, and...