David Hubert and His Mathematical Work

A great master of mathematics passed away when David Hubert died in Göttingen on February the 14th, 1943, at the age of eightyone. In retrospect it seems to us that the era of mathematics upon which he impressed the seal of his spirit and which is now sinking below the horizon achieved a more perfect balance than prevailed before and after, between the mastering of single concrete problems and the formation of general abstract concepts. Huber t s own work contributed not a little to bringing about this happy equilibrium, and the direction in which we have since proceeded can in many instances be traced back to his impulses. No mathematician of equal stature has risen from our generation. America owes him much. Many young mathematicians from this country, who later played a considerable role in the development of American mathematics, migrated to Göttingen between 1900 and 1914 to study under Hilbert. But the influence of his problems, his viewpoints, his methods, spread far beyond the circle of those who were directly inspired by his teaching. Hilbert was singularly free from national and racial prejudices; in all public questions, be they political, social or spiritual, he stood forever on the side of freedom, frequently in isolated opposition against the compact majority of his environment. He kept his head clear and was not afraid to swim against the current, even amidst the violent passions aroused by the first world war that swept so many other scientists off their feet. I t was not mere chance that when the Nazis "purged" the German universities in 1933 their hand fell most heavily on the Hilbert school and that Hubert 's most intimate collaborators left Germany either voluntarily or under the pressure of Nazi persecution. He himself was too old, and stayed behind; but the years after 1933 became for him years of ever deepening tragic loneliness. I t was another Germany in which he was born on January 23, 1862, and grew up. Königsberg, the eastern outpost of Prussia, the city of Kant, was his home town. Contrary to the habit of most German students who used to wander from university to university, Hilbert studied at home, and it was in his home university that he climbed the first rungs of the academic ladder, becoming Privatdozent and in due time ausserordentlicher Professor. During his entire life he preserved uncorrupted the characteristic Baltic accent. His reputa-