David Hilbert
David Hilbert
David Hilbertwas 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 fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry. He also formulated the theory of Hilbert spaces, one of the foundations of functional analysis...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth23 January 1862
CountryGermany
Is mathematics doomed to suffer the same fate as other sciences that have split into separate branches?... Mathematics is, in my opinion, an indivisible whole... May the new century bring with it ingenious champions and many zealous and enthusiastic disciples.
He who seeks for methods without having a definite problem in mind seeks in the most part in vain.
I didn't work especially hard at mathematics at school, because I knew that's what I'd be doing later.
A mathematical problem should be difficult in order to entice us, yet not completely inaccessible, lest it mock at our efforts. It should be to us a guide post on the mazy paths to hidden truths, and ultimately a reminder of our pleasure in the successful solution.
Mathematical science is in my opinion an indivisible whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned upon the connection of its parts.
The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality
Every kind of science, if it has only reached a certain degree of maturity, automatically becomes a part of mathematics.
However unapproachable these problems may seem to us and however helpless we stand before them, we have, nevertheless, the firm conviction that their solution must follow by a finite number of purely logical processes.
We must know. We will know.
Some people have got a mental horizon of radius zero and call it their point of view.
Geometry is the most complete science.
As long as a branch of science offers an abundance of problems, so long it is alive; a lack of problems foreshadows extinction or the cessation of independent development.
Every mathematical discipline goes through three periods of development: the naive, the formal, and the critical.
Besides it is an error to believe that rigour is the enemy of simplicity. On the contrary we find it confirmed by numerous examples that the rigorous method is at the same time the simpler and the more easily comprehended. The very effort for rigor forces us to find out simpler methods of proof.