Talk:David Hilbert/Archive 2

Below Discussion archived on May2, 2009.--Pie are round (talk) 15:28, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Translation

Two translations are given of Hilbert's epitaph "Wir muessen wissen, wir werden wissen": "We must know, we will know" and "we have to know, we shall know!". These are extremely similar and whatever distinction there may be does not appear to be helpful. Moreover, the second translation, falsely identified as better, actually strays from the German, and is not the commonly excepted form of his famous quotation. So I'm going to delete it. Zweidinge 22:28, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Born in?

He was born in Wehlau or in Koenigsberg?

Hilbert was in fact born in Königsberg. I changed the article accordingly.

Hilbert himself declared:

Meine Heimat ist Königsberg, wo ich als Sohn einer alten ostpreußischen Juristenfamilie 1862 geboren wurde. In Königsberg habe ich auch das Gymnasium besucht und studiert. Nach längeren Studienreisen habilitierte ich mich in Königsberg im Jahre 1886, wurde außerordentlicher Professor dort 1892 und ordentlicher Professor 1893.

Literally:

My home is the city of Königsberg, where I was born as the son of an old East Prussian family of lawyers. In Königsberg I have attended the Gymnasium and the university. After longer educational journeys I achieved my habilitation in Königsberg in 1886, became Extraordinarius there in 1892 and Ordinarius in 1893.

—Furfur 14:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

No!

Hilbert was in fact born in Wehlau. The book "Constance Reid, Hilbert", page 1 "...their first child was burn in Wehlau, near Königsberg... They named him David ..." The book "Constance Reid, Hilbert", page 2 "... David's father became city judge and moved his family into Königsberg proper ..." You can check this here:[1] Hilbert was too young when his family moved into Königsberg and Wehlau is near Königsberg, that is why Hilbetr wrote about Königsberg in Your texts.

Please help me to clear up this question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 09:39, July 22, 2007 (UTC) (talk)

I beg your pardon 87.103.174.88, but Hilbert himself declared that he was born in Königsberg. That's the reason why I added the citation. I don't known where Wehlau comes from. Ms. C. Reid may be a respected historian but in this point she is obviously wrong. I know her book but in this point one must refer to the original sources! You may also have a look at the short biography by Otto Blumenthal ("Lebensgeschichte" in "Gesammelte Abhandlungen" Vol III, Springer-Verlag, 1932 (1^st ed.), 1970 (2^nd ed.) pp. 388

--Furfur 15-Sept-07 12:13 CEST

The latest edition of Reid (1996) contains, on p. 8, a footnote almost a page long that details her exploration of this issue. Her conclusion at the bottom is:

"I feel that the information upon which I based my statement should be put before interested readers, who can make their own judgment."

Her researches include a cc of the birth certificate (no birth-place shown at all), but 2 months later David was baptized at the home of his grandparents in Konigsberg. Dr. von Schroder (the archivist-director who retrieved the certificate) stated in a letter to Reid: "It is quite possible that he was born in Wehlau where his father was a judge at the time and that he may have been baptized in Konigsberg simply because Wehlau was in the parish of the evanglische-reformierte Burg-Kirche of Koningsberg." (Reid gives the German in the following paragraph.) The point is, no one knows exactly, at this time (2007). Probably time will tell when someone researches this deeper. How close is Wehlau to Konigsberg? Was David born at home? In a hospital? Was there a hospital in Wehlau? What exactly was Wehlau -- village, town, wide-spot in road? Where was his mother living at the time -- In Wehlau with her husband or hunkered down with her parents in Konigsberg where she would get better care if something went wrong (childbirth in the 1862 being a dicey event), etc etc. A little forensics would probably answer this, but is it really that important? wvbailey:: 15:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Hallo Wvbailey, thank you for your insightful remarks. Wehlau was a small district village around 50 km East of Königsberg (see the maps here and here). It had 5.178 inhabitatants in 1875 (information taken from the German Wikipedia). It was however of some importance because it was the administrative center of a Landkreis (rural district). In 1657 the Treaty of Wehlau was signed here. Of course it is not really a matter of such importance in wich village in East Prussia Hilbert was born. But for me the most reliable information is, what Hilbert stated himself. Otto Blumenthal was his first Ph.D. student in Göttingen (thesis in 1898) and until to Hilberts death he was one of his closest collaborators (co-editor of the Annalen). In "Gesammelte Abhandlungen" (Collected Works, Springer, Berlin 1931) he pubished the above cited short biography of Hilbert. I have the feeling these two sources of information seem to be more reliable than the biography of C. Reid (as long as the statement "born in Wehlau" cannot be proven with a document).--Furfur 16-Sept-07 14:18 CEST

Your information helps. Wehlau thus was a good-sized place with a sizeable population, on a river that connects to Konigsberg. At 50 km it is far enough away that we can be sure that husband and wife were together, at least up until the days leading to David's birth. Considering the danger of childbirth, I would not be surprised if the mother did her "lying in" at her mother's in Konigsberg, where other family could have helped too. But this is all inference. Let me ask a you question: wouldn't the church where he was baptised also have their own records? Most churches have their own baptismal records not part of the town records? Or was this done differently back then? Did the communists mess up the records? I don't know what to think here. Somehow this has to go into an extended footnote. We could write something to this effect:

"David was born in either Konigsberg, where his grandparents lived, or in Wehlau, an adminstrative center and village some 50 km distant where his father was a judge at the time¹. Hilbert said he was born in Konigsberg²; his biographer Reid determinted that his birth certificate does not list a place.

¹ The exact location is unknown. [Here footnote would detail what Reid has to say and what Blumenthal has to say, and Hilbert himself said]

¹ [references the "Gesammelte Abhandlungen" (Collected Works, Springer, Berlin 1931) ]

wvbaileyWvbailey 15:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course there where church records in East Prussia as well as in other parts of Germany dating many centuries back. But I don't know of their fate. Enormous cultural heritage has been destroyed or looted in the inferno of 1944/45 and is now dispersed to partly unknown places somewhere in the former Soviet Union or in todays Poland. During Soviet times and in Communist Poland people tried to eliminate anything that reminded to the German past and to "rewrite" history. This attitude has fortunately gradually changed since then. Today the "Russian State University" in Kaliningrad is named after Immanuel Kant and this highschool tries to tie up to the respectable 400-year tradition of the old Albertina, including the remembrance of Hilbert. So, I am not sure if original documents are still available. I would still suggest a statement like "According to Hilbert's own record he was born in Königsberg ..." maybe with a footnote stating that this seems not entirely clear, since his father was occupied as a lawyer in Wehlau at that time.--Furfur 16-Sept-07 19:13 CEST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.123.119.151 (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I changed the above "possible change". wvbaileyWvbailey 18:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Photo copyright

Since the photograph of Hilbert was taken in 1912, it may still be in copyright. Can someone find out? If it is, then we need to know the copyright holder, so that the photo qualifies for fair use. Otherwise, we need to provide proof that it is not. Geometry guy 13:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I found out that the photograph was published (as a postcard): this means it is public domain. Geometry guy 19:42, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The photo has now survived deletion. Geometry guy 10:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The other 3 schools

in the phrase "one of three major schools of mathematics of the 20th century"

perhaps it would be nice to add the name of the other two schools. I only know Bourbaki as another school of thought. I've no idea what is the other school's name (perhaps rusian?). Also, this formalism seems to have strong connections with positivism. To me, Bourbaki also seems also strongly connected to positivism. Would this be a correct interpretation? Hilbert was from the 19th century, so, it wouldn't be strange if he's a positivist...

Good point. Would this be Formalist, Platonist, and Intuitionist? Maybe the author of that sentence could clarify. wvbaileyWvbailey 15:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The three (main) school were Formalist, Intuitionist and Logicist. ^_^ --Jörgen Tehor 18:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

GA status under review

This article will now be listed at WP:GA/R due to poor reference format and many claims are unsourced, particularly first couple sections. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

GA delisted per consensus at GAR. Giggy\^Talk 06:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

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copied over to this page from the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic?) archive page. wvbaileyWvbailey 14:37, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

David Hilbert

• Result: Delist Giggy\^Talk 06:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

David Hilbert (Edit · Talk · History · Watch)

(De)listing: Archive at GA/R, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

Un-uniform reference format, I also think many sections are undersourced or not sourced at all. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:06, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Before commenting on this discussion, please ensure that the article’s talk page has been notified, with a link to this discussion. Use [[WP:GA/R#David Hilbert|Good article review]] as the section heading.

Strong Delist - Pretty open and shut case. Poor referencing, weak prose, and the main image is up for deletion, just to name a few problems. Drewcifer3000 18:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Strong Delist - This article has major problems that need to be addressed. Referencing is inconsistently formatted, and the article needs more inline citations - there are several sections without any. Prose needs a lot of work. Lead is slightly short, could use some expansion. The fact that the the main image is proposed for deletion is obviously a major problem. The See also section is extremely long, and there are redlinks in it. Many of the articles listed in the section are already linked in the article. The The finiteness theorem section has three unsourced quotes that do not use proper format. Clearly, this article does not meet criteria. Raime 19:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Delist Fantastically under referenced. This article is well below standards; lets leave it here for the requisite week hoping in good faith that someone can fix it. However, I would have had no problem had this been snowball delisted... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 00:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Delist - Awesomely (jab at Jayron) under-referenced. I agree that this is a mess. Could have been boldly delisted. However, it may be improved this week with this here... statistically not, but you never know. Lara♥Love 14:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment You guys all know why I listed it here even though I know it's not going to make it. I don't want editors jump on my back because I delisted their favourite articles without first sending them to here. Seriously, at this rate I'll be quitting Wikipedia soon because they are chasing away good editors. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

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I find footnotes very distracting when they serve only to reference/cite. I propose we remove the footnotes when they are used for reference/citation and adopt an inline Harvard citation format. Clearly this won't help the problem of no references at all-- we will have to go through the entire article line by line and find where each morsel of info came from. Once every morsel is tracked down as to source then the prose can be reworked and some of the citations removed. wvbaileyWvbailey 15:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest the final version use the footnotes - that's the general practice in Wikipedia and I see the numbers less distracting than the author name. But lets get the citations in first. Unfortunately, I don't have much time right away, but I'll help as I can. (John User:Jwy talk) 19:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I've come to agree with you -- the footnotes will make for a smoother read. wvbaileyWvbailey 15:02, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Cool. I'm jealous of the time you've had to work on this article. I'll start converting when I get a chance this afternoon. . . (John User:Jwy talk) 19:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

In the light of this consensus :) I have converted the cites to footnotes. Geometry guy 10:49, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Hilbert

Hilbert signed a statement in favour of Hitler in about 1934. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.207.21 (talk) 11:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a source? (John User:Jwy talk) 16:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The German newspapers published the scientists' remarks the day before the plebiscite of 19/8/1934. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 10:06, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

We would need something that satisfies WP:SOURCES. (John User:Jwy talk) 16:01, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

"Famous" example

Wouldn't "widely known" be a more appropriate description? I'm thinking of the difference between, say, Steve Jobs, who is definitely famous, and Steve Wozniak, who is probably only "widely known" to computer aficionados and some others, but not-quite-famous...at least until he's on Dancing with the Stars...which sort of proves my point anyway :-)  Frank  |  talk  19:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

A rather subtle distinction that I'm not sure is consistently understood that way. I'm easy. Its just neutrality argument didn't fly with me - and he was a world leader in mathematics - so widely-known, famous or some synonym is important to the sentence. (John User:Jwy talk) 20:10, 18 February 2009 (UTC)