David Gilbert: the life of the great mathematician

David Gilbert is a well-known mathematician and teacher of the highest class, not knowing fatigue, persistent in his intentions, inspirational and magnanimous, one of the great in his time. Creative power, original originality of thinking, amazing perceptiveness and versatility of interests made David the pioneer in most areas of exact sciences.

Gilbert David: a short biography

David was born in the city of Velau, located near Koenigsberg (Prussia). Born on January 23, 1862, he was the first-born of a married couple - Otto and Maria. Gilbert was not a child prodigy; Alternating with the goal of fully exploring every area of mathematics, he solved the problems that interested him. With the completion of the creative impulse, the studied field of activity David left to his students. And left in absolute order, teaching them the appropriate course and publishing a good textbook to followers. Gilbert could do the same in another way: he announced for a new academic year a special course on the area of mathematics that he had not studied and conquered it along with the recruited students. Getting on such a course was considered a huge success, although in reality training on it was a huge test.

Gilbert and the Disciples

David Gilbert, whose biography is interesting to the modern generation, was caring and polite with the students, in whom he felt potential. If the spark faded, then the scientist politely recommended them to try themselves in a different kind of activity. Some of the students of Hilbert followed the advice of the teacher and became engineers, physicists and even writers. The professor did not understand the idlers and considered them to be inferior people. Being a very respected man of science, David had his own characteristics. In warm weather, he came to lectures in a shirt with a short sleeve and an open collar, which was not at all like a professor, or he carried flower bouquets to numerous passions. Could ahead of me on a bicycle, like some gift, to carry a container with fertilizers. However, despite his gaiety, David Gilbert was a rather tough person and could rudely criticize someone who did not meet his standards (it was too difficult to calculate, where it could be made easier, or explained quite clearly, as for the level of a schoolboy).

The first studies of Hilbert

His abilities for the exact sciences David Gilbert, whose brief biography is described in our article, felt even in Koenigsberg, where the profession of mathematics was venerated. Therefore, having chosen the quiet Göttingen - the place where German mathematicians gathered, Hilbert moved there in 1895 and successfully worked until 1933 - the moment Adolf Hitler came to power.

His lectures Gilbert read slowly, without unnecessary embellishments, with frequent repetitions in order for everyone to understand. Also David always repeated the previous material. Hilbert's lectures were always collected by a large number of people: several hundred people could be hammered into the hall, even on window-sills.

Research David began with algebra, more precisely - with the transformations in number theory. The report on this topic became the basis of his textbook.

The Hilbert family

Lucky in friendship, David was unlucky in the family. With his wife Kate, they got along fine, but their only son was born witless. Therefore, Gilbert found an outlet in communication with numerous students - representatives of countries in Europe and America. A mathematician often organized hiking trips and arranged joint tea parties, during which discussions on mathematical topics smoothly passed into ordinary conversations on various topics. Prudish German professors did not recognize this style of communication; It was the authority of David Hilbert that made him the norm, which the mathematician's disciples spread throughout the world.

Soon the algebraic interests of the mathematician moved to geometry, namely, to infinite-dimensional spaces. The limit of the sequence of points, the interval between them, and the angle between the vectors determined the Hilbert space-the similarity of the Euclidean space.

On the establishment of order in the exact sciences

In 1898-1899, David Gilbert published a book on the foundations of geometry, which immediately became a bestseller. In it he gave a complete system of axioms of Euclidean geometry, systematized them into groups, trying to determine the limiting values of each of them.

Such a success led Hilbert to the idea that in every mathematical field one can apply a clear system of irreplaceable axioms and definitions. As a key example, the mathematician stopped the choice on the general set theory, and in it on the famous continuum hypothesis of Cantor. David Gilbert managed to prove the unprovability of this hypothesis. However, in 1931 the young Austrian Kurt Gödel proved that postulates such as the continuum hypothesis, considered Hilbert as one of the mandatory axioms of set theory, can be found in any system of axioms. This statement indicates that the development of science does not stand still and will never cease, although each time will have to invent new axioms and definitions - that to which the human brain is fully adapted. Gilbert knew this from his own experience, so he was genuinely happy with the amazing discovery of Gödel.

"Mathematical problems" of Hilbert

At the age of 38, at the Mathematical Congress in Paris, which brought together all the color of science of the time, Gilbert made a presentation on "Mathematical problems", at which 23 important topics were proposed as a subject for discussion. The key tasks of mathematics of that time Hilbert considered actively developing fields of science (set theory, algebraic geometry, functional analysis, mathematical logic, number theory), in each of which he singled out the most important tasks, which by the end of the 20th century were either solved, Unsolvability.

The most important problem for mathematics

Once the young students asked Hilbert what problem, in his opinion, is most important for mathematics, to which the aging scientist received the answer: "To catch a fly on the other side of the Moon!" According to Hilbert, this task was of no special interest, but what Prospects could be opened by its solution! How much this would entail important discoveries and inventions of mighty methods!

The validity of Hilbert's words was confirmed by life: it is worth remembering that the invention of computers occurred for the instantaneous calculation of a hydrogen bomb. Such discoveries as the landing of the first man on the moon, the weather forecast on the whole planet, the launch of an artificial Earth satellite became a kind of by-product of the solution. Unfortunately, Gilbert was not able to witness such significant events.

In the last years of his life the professor helplessly watched the dissolution of the mathematical school in Göttingen, which took place under the rule of the Nazis. Died David Gilbert, a mathematician who made a huge contribution to science, on February 14, 1943, from the consequences of a fractured hand. The cause of death was the physical immobility of the mathematician.