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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.
Completely
Theory
Free
Shelled
Kernel
Mathematical
Scientific
Master
Masters

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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.
David Hilbert
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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.
David Hilbert
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The further a mathematical theory is developed, the more harmoniously and uniformly does its construction proceed, and unsuspected relations are disclosed between hitherto separated branches of the science.
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Physics is becoming too difficult for the physicists.
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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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No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification than that of the infinite.
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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.
David Hilbert
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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.
David Hilbert
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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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Every kind of science, if it has only reached a certain degree of maturity, automatically becomes a part of mathematics.
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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 infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man.
David Hilbert
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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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The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality.
David Hilbert
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If one were to bring ten of the wisest men in the world together and ask them what was the most stupid thing in existence, they would not be able to discover anything so stupid as astrology.
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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.
David Hilbert
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Some people have got a mental horizon of radius zero and call it their point of view.
David Hilbert
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I didn't work especially hard at mathematics at school, because I knew that's what I'd be doing later.
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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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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.
David Hilbert