David Masser facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
David Masser
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| Born | 8 November 1948 London, United Kingdom
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| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Known for | Masser–Gramain constant Oesterlé–Masser conjecture Sparsely totient number |
| Awards | ICM Speaker (1983) Humboldt Prize (1991) Fellow of the Royal Society (2005) Member of the Academia Europaea (2014) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | University of Basel |
| Doctoral advisor | Alan Baker |
| Doctoral students | Philipp Habegger Paula Tretkoff |
David William Masser, born on November 8, 1948, is a famous mathematician from England. He used to be a professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland.
He is well-known for his studies in special areas of Mathematics, like understanding different kinds of numbers and shapes. In 1985, with another mathematician named Joseph Oesterlé, he came up with a very important idea called the abc conjecture. Some people call it the "most important unsolved problem" in a part of math called Diophantine analysis.
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Early Life and Education
David Masser was born in London, England, on November 8, 1948. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, which is part of the famous University of Cambridge. He earned his first degree there in 1970.
In 1974, he got his higher degrees, including his Ph.D., also from Cambridge. His main research for his Ph.D. was about Elliptic Functions and Transcendence, guided by his teacher, Alan Baker.
Career as a Professor
Masser started his teaching career at the University of Nottingham in England, where he was a lecturer from 1973 to 1975. He then spent a year as a research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge.
He returned to the University of Nottingham, first as a lecturer and then as a reader, until 1983. From 1983 to 1992, he was a professor at the University of Michigan in the United States. After that, he moved to the University of Basel in Switzerland, where he taught mathematics until he retired in 2014.
Important Research
David Masser's research mainly focuses on three areas of mathematics:
- Transcendental number theory: This is about numbers that cannot be the root of a polynomial equation with integer coefficients. Think of numbers like pi (π).
- Diophantine approximation: This area looks at how well real numbers can be approximated by rational numbers (fractions).
- Diophantine geometry: This combines geometry and number theory to study solutions to equations using whole numbers.
The famous abc conjecture that Masser helped create came from trying to understand another math idea called the Szpiro conjecture, which is about elliptic curves.
Awards and Honors
David Masser has received several important awards for his work:
- In 1983, he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Warsaw, Poland. This is a big honor for mathematicians.
- He received the Humboldt Prize in 1991, which is given to scientists and scholars from outside Germany.
- In 2005, he was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a very old and respected group of scientists in the United Kingdom.
- In 2014, he became a member of the Academia Europaea, which is a group of top European scholars.
See also
- Analytic subgroup theorem
- Bézout's theorem
- Zilber–Pink conjecture
