David Masser
David William Masser (born November 8, 1948 in London ) is a British mathematician in the field of number theory , professor emeritus at the University of Basel . His main mathematical achievement lies in the postulate of the so-called abc conjecture .
Life
David Masser studied at Cambridge University . He was a student of Alan Baker , who received the Fields Medal in 1970 . In 1974 he received his doctorate; his doctorate dealt with elliptical functions and transcendent numbers . First he worked from 1973 to 1975 and 1976 to 1979 at the University of Nottingham as a research assistant, from 1979 to 1983 as a lecturer. From 1983 to 1992 he was a professor at the University of Michigan in the USA. He then moved to the University of Basel as a full professor in 1992, where he taught until 2014.
Masser is known for his work in the field of number theory. He was elected on May 26, 2005 as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society . With the election, the Royal Society honored Masser's contributions to the theory of transcendent numbers and to Diophantine geometry, which he developed together with Gisbert Wüstholz . Masser has the Erdős number 2.
Together with Joseph Oesterlé , Masser formulated the so-called abc conjecture in the 1980s . This conjecture is one of the most important unsolved problems about Diophantine equations . If the abc conjecture were proven, this would also result in the solution of some other unsolved problems in number theory. For example, the very complex proof of would Andrew Wiles of Fermat's Last theorem thus reduce to one side.
In 1983 David Masser was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Warsaw ( Zero estimates on group varieties ). In July 2014 he was elected to the Academia Europaea and professor emeritus at the University of Basel.
Awards and honors (selection)
- Humboldt Research Award (1990–1991)
- Member of the Japanese Academy of Sciences (September 25 to October 10, 1994)
- Fellowship of the Royal Society of London (2005)
- Academia Europaea (2014)
Fonts
- Elliptic Functions and Transcendence Theory. Springer Verlag 1975, Lecture Notes in Mathematics, No. 437, ( Book Review ).
Web links
- Literature by and about David Masser in the catalog of the German National Library
- David Masser in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)
- Website of David Masser at the University of Basel
- David Masser is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
- Illustrative treatise on the abc assumption (Dutch; PDF file; 2.53 MB).
Individual evidence
- ↑ David Masser's curriculum vitae on the website of the University of Basel (PDF)
- ^ Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660-2007. (KZ), page 44. (PDF file; 125 kB).
- ↑ List of authors with Erdős number 2 in the Erdős Number Project .
- ↑ Article on the abc presumption .
- ↑ ae-info.org: David Masser , last accessed on March 28, 2019
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Masser, David |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Masser, David William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 8, 1948 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |