Agreed. Anyone who is curious about him should read the superb biography https://www.amazon.com/Hilbert-Constance-Reid/dp/0387946748 https://www.amazon.com/Hil

Agreed. Anyone who is curious about him should read the superb biography https://www.amazon.com/Hilbert-Constance-Reid/dp/0387946748 https://www.amazon.com/Hilbert-Constance-Reid/dp/0387946748. It is excellent both for understanding his life, and slips in the subtle philosophical points that he introduced to mathematics. (Like what mathematical existence should mean in his view.) And yet manages to be appropriate for a general audience with no knowledge of math. I know of no better explanation for a lay audience of where Formalism, the philosophy of math that most mathematicians officially subscribe to, actually came from.