Alex Wilkie

Alex Wilkie , actually Alec James Wilkie, (* 1948 in Northampton ) is a British mathematical logician who deals with mathematical logic and model theory.

Alex Wilkie 2007

Wilkie studied at University College London (bachelor's degree 1969) and at the University of London , where he received his master's degree in mathematical logic in 1970 and his doctorate in 1973 from Bedford College with Wilfrid Hodges (Models of Number Theory). In 1972/73 he was a Lecturer at the University of Leicester , then a Research Fellow at the Open University until 1978 , before joining Oxford University as a Junior Lecturer . In 1980/81 he was an Assistant Professor at Yale University and in 1982 at the University of Paris VII . He was then at the University of Manchester and from 1986 reader in mathematical logic at Oxford as the successor to Robin Gandy . In 2007 he was appointed to the Fielden Chair of Pure Mathematics at Manchester University.

In 2001 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society , after the laudation, especially for finiteness results for sets defined by the exponential function, combining methods of differential geometry with those of logic. His results also had applications in the theory of Lie groups.

In 1980 he solved " Tarski 's High School Algebra Problem". This asks whether there are identities with multiplication, addition, power formation that cannot be derived from eleven elementary axioms of “high school” mathematics (already formulated by Richard Dedekind ). Wilkie found such statements that could be formulated in an elementary way but could not be proven with these axioms of elementary mathematics.

In 1993 he received the Karp Prize for his proof of the theoretical model completeness of the field of real numbers with the exponential function and in 2013 again for applications of model theory in number theory. In 1986 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berkeley (On schemes axiomatizing arithmetic) and in 1998 at the ICM in Berlin (O-Minimality).

He has been on the Council of the London Mathematical Society since 2007 and was Vice President of the Association for Symbolic Logic in 2006 . In 1993 he held the Tarski Lectures , in 2015 he was selected as a Gödel Lecturer and in 2017 he was awarded the Pólya Prize . In 2013 he was elected a member of the Academia Europaea .

He is married and has two children.

Web links

• Homepage in Manchester
• Alex Wilkie in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)