David Hilbert

David Hilbert (born January 23, 1862, Königsberg, Prussia [now Kaliningrad, Russia]—died February 14, 1943, Göttingen, Germany) was a German mathematician who reduced geometry to a series of axioms and contributed substantially to the establishment of the formalistic foundations of mathematics. His work in 1909 on integral equations led to 20th-century research in functional analysis.

The first steps of Hilbert’s career occurred at the University of Königsberg, at which in 1885 he finished his Inaugural-Dissertation (Ph.D.); he remained at Königsberg as a Privatdozent (lecturer, or assistant professor) in 1886–92, as an Extraordinarius (associate professor) in 1892–93, and as an Ordinarius in 1893–95. In 1892 he married Käthe Jerosch, and they had one child, Franz. In 1895 Hilbert accepted a professorship in mathematics at the University of Göttingen, at which he remained for the rest of his life.

The University of Göttingen had a flourishing tradition in mathematics, primarily as the result of the contributions of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, and Bernhard Riemann in the 19th century. During the first three decades of the 20th century this mathematical tradition achieved even greater eminence, largely because of Hilbert. The Mathematical Institute at Göttingen drew students and visitors from all over the world.

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Numbers and Mathematics

Hilbert’s intense interest in mathematical physics also contributed to the university’s reputation in physics. His colleague and friend, the mathematician Hermann Minkowski, aided in the new application of mathematics to physics until his untimely death in 1909. Three winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics—Max von Laue in 1914, James Franck in 1925, and Werner Heisenberg in 1932—spent significant parts of their careers at the University of Göttingen during Hilbert’s lifetime.

In a highly original way, Hilbert extensively modified the mathematics of invariants—the entities that are not altered during such geometric changes as rotation, dilation, and reflection. Hilbert proved the theorem of invariants—that all invariants can be expressed in terms of a finite number. In his Zahlbericht (“Commentary on Numbers”), a report on algebraic number theory published in 1897, he consolidated what was known in this subject and pointed the way to the developments that followed. In 1899 he published the Grundlagen der Geometrie (The Foundations of Geometry, 1902), which contained his definitive set of axioms for Euclidean geometry and a keen analysis of their significance. This popular book, which appeared in 10 editions, marked a turning point in the axiomatic treatment of geometry.

A substantial part of Hilbert’s fame rests on a list of 23 research problems he enunciated in 1900 at the International Mathematical Congress in Paris. In his address, “The Problems of Mathematics,” he surveyed nearly all the mathematics of his day and endeavoured to set forth the problems he thought would be significant for mathematicians in the 20th century. Many of the problems have since been solved, and each solution was a noted event. Of those that remain, however, one, in part, requires a solution to the Riemann hypothesis, which is usually considered to be the most important unsolved problem in mathematics (see number theory).

In 1905 the first award of the Wolfgang Bolyai prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences went to Henri Poincaré, but it was accompanied by a special citation for Hilbert.

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In 1905 (and again from 1918) Hilbert attempted to lay a firm foundation for mathematics by proving consistency—that is, that finite steps of reasoning in logic could not lead to a contradiction. But in 1931 the Austrian–U.S. mathematician Kurt Gödel showed this goal to be unattainable: propositions may be formulated that are undecidable; thus, it cannot be known with certainty that mathematical axioms do not lead to contradictions. Nevertheless, the development of logic after Hilbert was different, for he established the formalistic foundations of mathematics.

Hilbert’s work in integral equations in about 1909 led directly to 20th-century research in functional analysis (the branch of mathematics in which functions are studied collectively). His work also established the basis for his work on infinite-dimensional space, later called Hilbert space, a concept that is useful in mathematical analysis and quantum mechanics. Making use of his results on integral equations, Hilbert contributed to the development of mathematical physics by his important memoirs on kinetic gas theory and the theory of radiations. In 1909 he proved the conjecture in number theory that for any n, all positive integers are sums of a certain fixed number of nth powers; for example, 5 = 2² + 1², in which n = 2. In 1910 the second Bolyai award went to Hilbert alone and, appropriately, Poincaré wrote the glowing tribute.

The city of Königsberg in 1930, the year of his retirement from the University of Göttingen, made Hilbert an honorary citizen. For this occasion he prepared an address entitled “Naturerkennen und Logik” (“The Understanding of Nature and Logic”). The last six words of Hilbert’s address sum up his enthusiasm for mathematics and the devoted life he spent raising it to a new level: “Wir müssen wissen, wir werden wissen” (“We must know, we shall know”). In 1939 the first Mittag-Leffler prize of the Swedish Academy went jointly to Hilbert and the French mathematician Émile Picard.

The last decade of Hilbert’s life was darkened by the tragedy brought to himself and to so many of his students and colleagues by the Nazi regime.