People who have inspired us.

DAVID HILBERT

David Hilbert (1862 –1943) was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of ideas in many areas, including the axiomatization of geometry.
Hilbert is also known as one of the founders of proof theory and mathematical logic.
   
The 23 Problems
Hilbert put forth a most influential list of 23 unsolved problems at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900. This is generally reckoned the most successful and deeply considered compilation of open problems ever to be produced by an individual mathematician. Here is the introduction of the speech that Hilbert gave:

“Who among us would not be happy to lift the veil behind which is hidden the future; to gaze at the coming developments of our science and at the secrets of its development in the centuries to come? What will be the ends toward which the spirit of future generations of mathematicians will tend? What methods, what new facts will the new century reveal in the vast and rich field of mathematical thought?”
Some of these were solved within a short time. Others have been discussed throughout the 20th century, with a few now taken to be unsuitably open-ended to come to closure. Some even continue to this day to remain a challenge for mathematicians. And may not ever be solved, according to Gödel’s  incompleteness theorem.


The epitaph on his tombstone in Göttingen consists of the famous lines he spoke at a German Scientists and Physicians meeting in the autumn of 1930.


Wir müssen wissen.
Wir werden wissen.
In English:
We must know.
We will know.

By Aggelos Nikomanis (2013-2014)



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