Hilbert, David

Hilbert, David,(1862–1943), German mathematician, professor at Königsberg (1886–95) and Göttingen (1895–1930), b. Königsberg, Germany. His proof of the theorum of invariants (1890) supplanted earlier computational work on the subject and paved the way for modern algebraic geometry. His report on algebraic number theory (1897) inspired many of the subsequent developments in that area, and he also made significant contributions to multivariable calculus, theoretical physics, mathematical logic, and Euclidean geometry. At the International Mathematical Congress in Paris (1900), he put forth 23 research problems, which launched much of the research agenda of 20th-century mathematics; some of the problems remain unsolved.

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Hilbert, David

(born Jan. 23, 1862, Königsberg, Prussia—died Feb. 14, 1943, Göttingen, Ger.) German mathematician whose work aimed at establishing the formalistic foundations of mathematics. He finished his Ph.D. at the University of Königsberg (1884) and moved to the University of Göttingen in 1895. In 1900 at the International Mathematical Congress in Paris, he laid out 23 research problems as a challenge to the 20th century. Many have since been solved, in each case to great fanfare. Hilbert's name is prominently attached to an infinite-dimensional space called a Hilbert space (see inner product space), a concept useful in mathematical analysis and quantum mechanics.