dear colleague ross,
you find the quote in constance reid's biography "Hilbert" (springer 1970),
p. 136. the reason why the wolfskehl prize was kind of a goose is scattered
throughout the previous chapters, starting p. 120, with a summary towards
the end of p.135. the goose stopped laying golden eggs because of the
post-war inflation, see p. 161.
i have no idea where reid has taken the episode from. so far as i can
remember it's not contained in blumenbach's biographical sketchs or any
other biographical document that is closer to hilbert (personally and
temporally) and that i'm aware of. reid's way of preparing her biograhpy
relied very much on correspondence and oral and written interviews with
then still existing members of the goettingen school, which means, her
source for this is quite in the dark.
but sofar i've found her biography quite reliable and personally i have no
doubt that hilbert really said something very close to the expression
given, especially so, because it matches perfectly with hilbert's kind of
humour as it it witnessed by a lot of people. in short: i don't think it is
a myth, and even if it were, it's not a distorting but a revealing one.
best, bb
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Bernd Buldt
FG Philosophie | Fon: [+49] (0)7531/88-2794 (Office)
Universitaet Konstanz | Fax: [+49] (0)7531/88-4121
D-78457 Konstanz | Fon/Fax: [+49] (0)7731/24116 (Private)
Germany | email: bernd.buldt@uni-konstanz.de
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