The Future of Mathematics

Abstract

“Who of us would not be glad to lift the veil behind which the future lies hidden; to cast a glance at the next advances of our science and at the secrets of its development during future centuries? What particular goals will there be toward which the leading mathematical spirits of coming generations will strive? What new methods and new facts will the new centuries disclose in the wide and rich field of mathematical thought?

The general remarks from the talk on “Mathematical Problems,” delivered by David Hilbert before the Second International Congress of Mathematicians at Paris in 1900, are reprinted with permission of the publisher, the American Mathematical Society, from the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, vol. 8, 1902, pp. 437–445, 478–479. Copyright 1902. The entire text of the talk appears in the Bulletin translated into English by Dr. Mary Winston Newson with the approval of Prof. Hilbert.