David Hilbert

David Hilbert (1862-1943), German mathematician, professor at Königsberg (1886-95) and Göttingen (1895-1930), b. Königsberg, Germany. His proof of the theorum of invariants (1890) supplanted earlier computational work on the subject and paved the way for modern algebraic geometry. His report on algebraic number theory (1897) inspired many of the subsequent developments in that area, and he also made significant contributions to multivariable calculus, theoretical physics, mathematical logic, and Euclidean geometry. At the International Mathematical Congress in Paris (1900), he put forth 23 research problems, which launched much of the research agenda of 20th-century mathematics; some of the problems remain unsolved.

Hilbert, David (1862–1943) German mathematician, b. Russia. He was professor of mathematics (1895–1943) at the University of Göttingen. Hilbert's Foundations of Geometry (1899) had the most profound influence on the study of geometry since Euclid, establishing a rigorous axiomatic basis for the subject. Kurt Gödel later discredited his attempt to ground all mathematics on axioms. Hilbert's On Numbers (1897) systematized all the known results of algebraic number theory. His work on integral equations led to the concept of Hilbert space, crucial to the development of quantum mechanics. In 1900, Hilbert proposed 23 problems for the mathematicians of the 20th century to tackle. Most of these were solved, and led to profound new understandings in mathematics.