FIRST PUBLICATION OF THE HILBERT METRIC

HILBERT, DAVID.

Ueber die gerade Linie als kürzeste Verbindung zweier Punkte. (Aus einem an Herrn F. Klein gerichteten Briefe).

Leipzig, B.G. Teubner, 1895. 8vo. Original printed wrappers, no backstrip. In "Mathematische Annalen. Begründet durch Alfred Clebsch und Carl Neumann. 46. Band. 1. Heft."Entire issue offered. Internally very fine and clean. [Hilbert:] Pp. 91-96. [Entire issue: IV, 160 pp].

First printing of Hilbert's groundbreaking paper in which "Hilbert's Metric" (or Hilbert's projective metric) - and the metric in general - was introduced. The Hilbert metric an a closed convex cone that can be applied to various purposed in non-Euclidean geometry

The usefulness of Hilbert's metric were made clear in 1957 by Garrett Birkhoff who showed that the Perron-Frobenius theorem for non-negative matrices and Jentzch's theorem for integral operators with positive kernel could both be proved by an application of the Banach contraction mapping theorem in suitable metric spaces. (Serrin. Hilbert's Matric. P. 1).

Order-nr.: 44580