At the beginning of the 20th century, the German mathematician David Hilbert (1862–1943) advocated an ambitious program to formulate a system of axioms and rules of inference that would encompass all ...

For four decades, a quiet boundary in pure mathematics kept a powerful theorem locked inside the safe world of finite quantities. Now a new result known as Sebestyen’s theorem has pushed that boundary ...

Every December 8 for years, Julia Robinson blew out the candles on her birthday cake and made the same wish: that someday she would know the answer to Hilbert’s 10th problem. Though she worked on the ...

The world of mathematics is full of unreachable corners, where unsolvable problems live. Now, yet another has been exposed. In 1900, the eminent mathematician David Hilbert announced a list of 23 key ...