David Hilbert

David Hilbert was one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, transforming mathematical physics, logic, and geometry. A native of Königsberg and professor at the University of Göttingen, Hilbert made Göttingen the undisputed epicenter of international mathematical research for forty years.

At the Second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900, Hilbert delivered a legendary address presenting Hilbert's 23 Problems—an audacious collection of unsolved mathematical challenges (including the Riemann hypothesis and Goldbach conjecture) that guided mathematical research throughout the entire twentieth century. He axiomatized Euclidean geometry, proved Hilbert's basis theorem in invariant theory, and developed the infinite-dimensional vector space known as Hilbert space, which became the indispensable mathematical framework for quantum mechanics. He also formulated the Einstein-Hilbert action in general relativity concurrently with Einstein. His famous epitaph in Göttingen boldly declares: Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen. ('We must know. We will know.')