Life
Hilbert, the first of two children of Otto and Maria Therese (Erdtmann) Hilbert, was born in the Province of Prussia - either in Königsberg (according to Hilbert's own statement) or in Wehlau (known since 1946 as Znamensk) near Königsberg where his father worked at the time of his birth. In the fall of 1872, he entered the Friedrichskolleg Gymnasium (Collegium fridericianum, the same school that Immanuel Kant had attended 140 years before), but after an unhappy period he transferred (fall 1879) to and graduated from (spring 1880) the more science-oriented Wilhelm Gymnasium. Upon graduation he enrolled (autumn 1880) at the University of Königsberg, the "Albertina". In the spring of 1882, Hermann Minkowski (two years younger than Hilbert and also a native of Königsberg but so talented he had graduated early from his gymnasium and gone to Berlin for three semesters), returned to Königsberg and entered the university. "Hilbert knew his luck when he saw it. In spite of his father's disapproval, he soon became friends with the shy, gifted Minkowski." In 1884, Adolf Hurwitz arrived from Göttingen as an Extraordinarius, i.e., an associate professor. An intense and fruitful scientific exchange between the three began and especially Minkowski and Hilbert would exercise a reciprocal influence over each other at various times in their scientific careers. Hilbert obtained his doctorate in 1885, with a dissertation, written under Ferdinand von Lindemann, titled Über invariante Eigenschaften spezieller binärer Formen, insbesondere der Kugelfunktionen ("On the invariant properties of special binary forms, in particular the spherical harmonic functions").
Hilbert remained at the University of Königsberg as a professor from 1886 to 1895. In 1892, Hilbert married Käthe Jerosch (1864–1945), "the daughter of a Konigsberg merchant, an outspoken young lady with an independence of mind that matched his own". While at Königsberg they had their one child, Franz Hilbert (1893–1969). In 1895, as a result of intervention on his behalf by Felix Klein, he obtained the position of Chairman of Mathematics at the University of Göttingen, at that time the best research-center for mathematics in the world. He remained there for the rest of his life.
His son Franz suffered his entire life from an (undiagnosed) mental illness, his inferior intellect was a terrible disappointment to his father and this misfortune was a matter of distress to the mathematicians and students at Göttingen. Minkowski — Hilbert's "best and truest friend" — died prematurely of a ruptured appendix in 1909.
Read more about this topic: David Hilbert
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Professors of literature, who for the most part are genteel but mediocre men, can make but a poor defense of their profession, and the professors of science, who are frequently men of great intelligence but of limited interests and education, feel a politely disguised contempt for it; and thus the study of one of the most pervasive and powerful influences on human life is traduced and neglected.”
—Yvor Winters (1900–1968)
“we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Dragging out life to the last possible second is not living to the best effect. The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat. The best of life, Passworthy, lies nearest to the edge of death.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)