The Hilbert Problems
The German mathematician David Hilbert (1862-1943) was born on Jan. 23, 1862, in Konigsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He received his doctorate from the University of Konigsberg in 1884 and remained there as a professor from 1886 to 1895. In 1895 he joined the University of Gottingen and retired in 1930.
Hilbert reduced Euclidean geometry to a series of axioms. A substantial part of Hilbert's fame rests on a list of 23 research problems he presented in 1900 to the International Mathematical Congress in Paris. He surveyed nearly all the mathematics of his day and set forth the problems he thought would be significant for mathematicians in the 20th century.