David Hilbert
German mathematician and philosopher of mathematics
David Hilbert was a German mathematician and philosopher of mathematics born on 23 January 1862 and died on 14 February 1943.[1] Cantor's set theory and transfinite numbers were supported and defended by Hilbert.[2]
Quick Facts
- Born
- 23 January 1862
- Birthplace
- Königsberg or Wehlau, Kingdom of Prussia
- Died
- 14 February 1943
- Place of death
- Göttingen, Nazi Germany
- Field
- Mathematics
- physics
- philosophy
- Workplaces
- University of Königsberg; Göttingen University
- Education
- University of Königsberg (PhD)
- Thesis year
- 1885
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
Hilbert was born in the Province of Prussia, either in Königsberg or Wehlau, as the first child of Otto and Maria Therese Hilbert.[3] Hilbert earned his doctorate in 1885 with a dissertation on invariant properties of special binary forms.[4] Hilbert married Käthe Jerosch in 1892, and they had one child, Franz, who suffered from mental illness.[5] He developed pernicious anemia around 1925, which left him "hardly a scientist after 1925" according to his assistant Eugene Wigner.[6]
At age eight, Hilbert started school, which was two years later than the typical enrollment age.[3] From 1886 through 1895, Hilbert served as a Privatdozent at the University of Königsberg.[7] Raised as a Calvinist in the Prussian Evangelical Church, Hilbert was baptized in that faith but subsequently left the Church and adopted agnosticism.[8]
What the cited sources add
The Joyce account states that Hilbert's 1900 address to the International Congress of Mathematicians outlined 23 major mathematical problems for the coming century.[9] Some of these problems were resolved contrary to Hilbert's expectations, such as the continuum hypothesis.[9] The Zach entry notes that Hilbert's Program was a proposal for the foundation of classical mathematics put forward in the early 1920s.[10] Zach explains that the consistency proof was to be carried out using only "finitary" methods.[10]
Zach also states that Gödel's incompleteness theorems are generally taken to show that Hilbert's Program cannot be carried out.[10] The Random House dictionary entry describes Hilbert as a German mathematician who made outstanding contributions to the theories of number fields and invariants and to geometry.[11]
References
- Wikipedia, "David Hilbert" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Hilbert". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "David Hilbert" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Joyce, "The Mathematical Problems of David Hilbert", Clark University; Hilbert, "Mathematical Problems" (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "David Hilbert" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; also on p. 8, Reid notes that there is some ambiguity as to exactly where Hilbert was born. Hilbert himself stated that he was born in Königsberg. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "David Hilbert" (CC BY-SA 4.0) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "David Hilbert" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Reid 1996, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=mR4SdJGD7tEC&pg=PA4 4–7] (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "David Hilbert" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Wigner, "The Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner", Plenum, 1992-10-01 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "David Hilbert" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Suzuki, "Mathematics in Historical Context", Mathematical Association of America, 2009, p. 342 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "David Hilbert" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: The Hilberts had, by this time, left the Calvinist Protestant church in which they had been baptized and married. – Reid 1996, p.91; Shaposhnikov, "Theological Underpinnings of the Modern Philosophy of Mathematics. Part II: The Quest for Autonomous Foundations", Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric, 2016, p. 147–168; "Mathematics is a presuppositionless science. To found it I do not need God, as does Kronecker, or the assumption of a special faculty of our understanding attu; Michael R. Matthews, "Science, Worldviews and Education", Spr en.wikipedia.org
- Joyce, "The Mathematical Problems of David Hilbert", Clark University. facts only, no text reused. mathcs.clarku.edu
- Zach, Richard, "Hilbert's Program", 31 July 2003. facts only, no text reused. plato.stanford.edu
- "Hilbert". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.. facts only, no text reused. dictionary.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article David Hilbert (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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