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We do not master a scientific theory until we have shelled and completely prised free its mathematical kernel.

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.
Mathematical
Scientific
Master
Masters
Completely
Theory
Free
Shelled
Kernel

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The tool which serves as intermediary between theory and practice, between thought and observation, is mathematics it is mathematics which builds the linking bridges and gives the ever more reliable forms.
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One must be able to say at all times--instead of points, straight lines, and planes--tables, chairs, and beer mugs
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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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The arithmetical symbols are written diagrams and the geometrical figures are graphic formulas.
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I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission as a Privatdozent. After all, the Senate is not a bathhouse. Objecting to sex discrimination being the reason for rejection of Emmy Noether's application to join the faculty at the University of Gottingen.
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[On Cantor's work:] The finest product of mathematical genius and one of the supreme achievements of purely intellectual human activity.
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Geometry, like arithmetic, requires for its logical development only a small number of simple, fundamental principles. These fundamental principles are called the axioms of geometry.
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Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.
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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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Physics is becoming too difficult for the physicists.
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Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries for mathematics, the cultural world is one country.
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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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Some people have got a mental horizon of radius zero and call it their point of view.
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Sometimes it happens that a man's circle of horizon becomes smaller and smaller, and as the radius approaches zero it concentrates on one point. And then that becomes his point of view.
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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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Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom - that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself.
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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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Geometry is the most complete science.
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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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Every mathematical discipline goes through three periods of development: the naive, the formal, and the critical.
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