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
No one shall expel us from the paradise which Cantor has created for us. Expressing the importance of Cantor's set theory in the development of mathematics.
The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man.
We do not master a scientific theory until we have shelled and completely prised free its mathematical kernel.
How thoroughly it is ingrained in mathematical science that every real advance goes hand in hand with the invention of sharper tools and simpler methods which, at the same time, assist in understanding earlier theories and in casting aside some more complicated developments.
Before beginning [to try to prove Fermat's Last Theorem] I should have to put in three years of intensive study, and I haven't that much time to squander on a probable failure.
I didn't work especially hard at mathematics at school, because I knew that's what I'd be doing later.
The arithmetical symbols are written diagrams and the geometrical figures are graphic formulas.
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.
The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality
A mathematical theory is not to be considered complete until you have made it so clear that you can explain it to the first man whom you meet on the street.
Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.
Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries; for mathematics, the cultural world is one country.
No one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created for us.
One can measure the importance of a scientific work by the number of earlier publications rendered superfluous by it