In less than 100 seconds, David Colton attempts to shed light on this seemingly abstract concept of mathematics. He starts by reminding viewers of the principles of vectors within a plane, such as how to calculate their lengths and dot their products. He explains that these concepts developed for two dimensions can extended to infinite dimensions within the realm of Hilbert space.

Colton, who is a researcher at the University of Delaware in the US, explains how this mathematical device was devised by the German mathematician David Hilbert in the early 20th century. It was immediately used by physicists including Erwin Schrödinger in the development of quantum theory. Today, it is widely used by physicists and mathematicians who want to study the solutions of the Schrödinger equation.

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