David Hilbert

David Hilbert was a multi-talented and celebrated mathematician. In the first place, he is mainly famous for his extraordinary contribution to the fields of mathematics. He was also the first to invent Invariant theory.

Hilbert born on 23 January 1862 in Konigsberg, Prussia. His father Otto Hilbert was a city judge and mother Maria was a philosophy and astronomy lover. In the first place, Maria’s influence on child David was very much. He learned number theory and geometry from his mother. From his childhood, he also learned the wonders of mathematics.

After completing high school, Hilbert went to Konigsberg University. He got his doctorate degree in 1885. Adolf Hurwitz, one of the friends of Hilbert in Konigsberg, influenced his mathematical wisdom very much. In 1886, Hilbert became a member of the staff of the university. After that, in 1893 he became a full professor.

Overall, David Hilbert was a multi-talented genius. He contributed in different sectors of mathematics like axiomatic theory, number theory, invariant theory etc. He founded the base of modern mathematical logic.

in 1899, Hilbert published his new book ‘The foundations of Geometry’. In this book, he showed some limitations of euclidean geometry. Like the axiomatization of geometry, Hilbert wanted to axiomatize mathematics. His goal was to create a ‘formalist’ school of mathematics against the ‘intuitionist school’ of Kronecker. On the other hand, he was expanding his contribution towards mathematics in different sections- like Partial Differential Equation, mathematical physics, calculus of variations etc. His goal of mathematical formalism has not achieved yet.

Hilbert gave the greatest assignment to the mathematicians of the world in the history of mathematics in 1900. He delivered a lecture ‘mathematical problems’ by name before Paris International Congress. He proposed 23 mathematical problems to the 20th century mathematicians to devote themselves. These problems are famous as ‘Hilbert’s Problems’. Even greatest mathematicians of today could not solve many of these problems.

Hilbert’s last phase of life was not very pleasant. He experienced many Jewish mathematician’s killing by the Nazi army. He spoke against oppression but his good wishes never came true. After that, this legend died in 1943. Very Few people attended the funeral of this great mathematician.