What is Hilbert’s 24th Problem?

In 2000, a draft note of David Hilbert was found in his Nachlass concerning a 24th problem he had consider to include in the his famous problem list of the talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1900 in Paris. This problem concerns simplicity of proofs. In this paper we review the (very few) traces of this problem which one can find in the work of Hilbert and his school, as well as modern research started on it after its publication. We stress, in particular, the mathematical nature of the problem.¹