David hilbert, a master mathematician, gave a famous speech at the 2nd World Congress of Mathematicians held in Paris on August 8th, 1900, and put forward 23 mathematical problems. Hilbert problem has inspired the wisdom of mathematicians and guided the direction of mathematics in the past hundred years, and its influence and promotion on the development of mathematics is enormous and immeasurable.
The 20th century is a century of great development of mathematics. Many important problems in mathematics have been satisfactorily solved, such as the proof of Fermat's last theorem and the completion of the classification of finite simple groups, thus making the basic theory of mathematics develop unprecedentedly.
At the beginning of 2000, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Clay Institute of Mathematics in the United States selected seven "Millennium Prize Questions", and the board of directors of the Clay Institute of Mathematics decided to set up a grand prize fund of 7 million dollars, and each "Millennium Prize Question" could be awarded10 million dollars.
The purpose of choosing "Millennium Prize Problem" by Clay Institute of Mathematics is not to form a new direction of mathematics development in the new century, but to focus on major problems that are crucial to mathematics development and mathematicians dream of and expect to solve.