Nationality British Fields Mathematics | Role Mathematician Name Alan Baker Awards Fields Medal | |
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Born 19 August 1939 (age 84)
London, England ( 1939-08-19 ) Institutions University of Cambridge Alma mater University College London
University of Cambridge Thesis Some Aspects of Diophantine Approximation (1964) Doctoral students John Coates
Yuval Flicker
Roger Heath-Brown
Richard Clive Mason
David Masser
Robert Odoni
Cameron Stewart Known for Number theory
Diophantine equations
Baker's theorem Books A concise introduction to the theory of numbers Education University of Cambridge, University College London Similar People David Masser, Harold Davenport, John Charles Fields, John H Coates, John G Thompson | ||
Doctoral advisor Harold Davenport | ||
Alan Baker, FRS (born 19 August 1939) is an English mathematician, known for his work on effective methods in number theory, in particular those arising from transcendental number theory.
Contents
Life
Alan Baker was born in London on 19 August 1939. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970, at age 31. His academic career started as a student of Harold Davenport, at University College London and later at Cambridge. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in the fall of 1970. He is a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
His interests are in number theory, transcendence, logarithmic forms, effective methods, Diophantine geometry and Diophantine analysis.
In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
Accomplishments
Baker generalized the Gelfond–Schneider theorem, itself a solution to Hilbert's seventh problem. Specifically, Baker showed that if