David Hilbert intended to bring mathematics from the methodological chaos into which it plunged at the end of the 19th century to order through an axiom that substantiated it consistently and completely. Ultimately, this landmark project failed, but the attempt itself forever changed the face of the entire discipline. To rid mathematics of contradictions, to make it “ideal,” Hilbert explored it far and wide, even delving into physics to provide quantum mechanics with the structure that was later named after him—Hilbert space. Among his colleagues, this extraordinary scientist was distinguished by his incredible charisma, and the famous 23 cardinal problems formulated by him in 1900 predetermined the development of the discipline itself for decades to come. He transformed the city of Göttingen into the mathematics capital of the world, only to see it ravaged by Nazi purges. The famous phrase “We must know. We will know,” engraved on his tomb, conveys the thirst for knowledge of the last great universal mathematician.