Math Rock: 2.29.12

You may have heard of Professor David Hilbert. Then again, chances are high that you have not. He is the mastermind behind Hilbert's Problems--a treatise on 23 defining mathematical problems presented to an international conference in 1900. His queries were issued as a charge to the field, as 'unsolvable' challenges to the future of mathematical thought. As you can well imagine, many nerds and geeks in the ensuing century and some change of mathematical study applied themselves to proving Hilbert wrong. But his triumph, although somewhat diminished, remains complete: 3 of the problems remain unanswerable. This week, Gemini, personalize Hilbert's aims to your own life of inquiry. What questions can you pose to yourself that are seemingly impossible to answer? And how will you take on the challenge of shortening that list by committing to never stop trying to always know more than you do now?