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Every mathematical discipline goes through three periods of development: the naive, the formal, and the critical.

David Hilbert

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David Hilbert
Age: 81 †
Born: 1862
Born: January 23
Died: 1943
Died: February 14
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
University Teacher
Königsberg i. Pr.
Development
Goes
Three
Naive
Formal
Every
Mathematical
Critical
Periods
Discipline

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We do not master a scientific theory until we have shelled and completely prised free its mathematical kernel.
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Every kind of science, if it has only reached a certain degree of maturity, automatically becomes a part of mathematics.
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No one shall expel us from the paradise which Cantor has created for us. Expressing the importance of Cantor's set theory in the development of mathematics.
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Is mathematics doomed to suffer the same fate as other sciences that have split into separate branches?... Mathematics is, in my opinion, an indivisible whole... May the new century bring with it ingenious champions and many zealous and enthusiastic disciples.
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Before beginning [to try to prove Fermat's Last Theorem] I should have to put in three years of intensive study, and I haven't that much time to squander on a probable failure.
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Mathematical science is in my opinion an indivisible whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned upon the connection of its parts.
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The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality.
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