David Hilbert, the German mathematician, was born in Königsberg and, except for a semester at Heidelberg, did his university studies there. His dissertation, presented in 1884, was on a problem in the theory of algebraic invariants, and it was to this theory that Hilbert devoted his mathematical researches until 1892. Through these penetrating investigations Hilbert obtained many pregnant results, some of them (Hilbertscher Nullstellensatz, Hilbertscher Irreduzibilitätssatz) still known by his name. The methods he used in these investigations inaugurated a trend toward treating algebra more conceptually and have since become dominant in the field.

In 1886 Hilbert became a Privatdozent and in 1892 an extraordinary professor at the University of Königsberg. In 1893 he was named by the minister of culture Friedrich Althoff to succeed his teacher, Felix Lindemann, as an ordinary professor at Königsberg. In 1895 Hilbert accepted an invitation initiated by Felix Klein, to...