Alan Baker (mathematician)
Alan Baker | |
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Born | London, England | 19 August 1939
Died | 4 February 2018 Cambridge, England | (aged 78)
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | University College London University of Cambridge |
Known for | Number theory Diophantine equations Baker's theorem |
Awards | Fields Medal (1970) Adams Prize (1972) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions | University of Cambridge |
Thesis | Some Aspects of Diophantine Approximation (1964) |
Doctoral advisor | Harold Davenport |
Doctoral students | John Coates Yuval Flicker Roger Heath-Brown David Masser Cameron Stewart |
Alan Baker FRS (19 August 1939 – 4 February 2018[1]) was an English mathematician, known for his work on effective methods in number theory, in particular those arising from transcendental number theory.
Life[]
Alan Baker was born in London on 19 August 1939. He attended Stratford Grammar School, East London, and his academic career started as a student of Harold Davenport, at University College London and later at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received his PhD.[2] He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1970 when he was awarded the Fields Medal at the age of 31.[3] In 1974 he was appointed Professor of Pure Mathematics at Cambridge University, a position he held until 2006 when he became an Emeritus. He was a fellow of Trinity College from 1964 until his death.[2]
His interests were in number theory, transcendence, logarithmic forms, effective methods, Diophantine geometry and Diophantine analysis.
In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[4] He has also been made a foreign fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India.[5]
Accomplishments[]
Baker generalized the Gelfond–Schneider theorem, itself a solution to Hilbert's seventh problem.[6] Specifically, Baker showed that if are algebraic numbers (besides 0 or 1), and if are irrational algebraic numbers such that the set are linearly independent over the rational numbers, then the number is transcendental.
Selected publications[]
- Baker, Alan (1966), "Linear forms in the logarithms of algebraic numbers. I", Mathematika, 13 (2): 204–216, doi:10.1112/S0025579300003971, ISSN 0025-5793, MR 0220680
- Baker, Alan (1967a), "Linear forms in the logarithms of algebraic numbers. II", Mathematika, 14: 102–107, doi:10.1112/S0025579300008068, ISSN 0025-5793, MR 0220680
- Baker, Alan (1967b), "Linear forms in the logarithms of algebraic numbers. III", Mathematika, 14 (2): 220–228, doi:10.1112/S0025579300003843, ISSN 0025-5793, MR 0220680
- Baker, Alan (1990), Transcendental number theory, Cambridge Mathematical Library (2nd ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-39791-9, MR 0422171; 1st edition. 1975.[7]
- Baker, Alan; Wüstholz, G. (2007), Logarithmic forms and Diophantine geometry, New Mathematical Monographs, 9, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-88268-2, MR 2382891
Honours and awards[]
- 1970: Fields Medal
- 1972: Adams Prize
- 1973: Fellowship of the Royal Society
References[]
- ^ Trinity College website, retrieved 5 February 2018
- ^ Jump up to: a b "BAKER, Prof. Alan". Who's Who. ukwhoswho.com. 2019 (online ed.). A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. (subscription or UK public library membership required) (subscription required)
- ^ Institute for Advanced Study: A Community of Scholars Archived 6 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2012-11-03.
- ^ "National Academy of Sciences, India: Foreign Fellows". Retrieved 2 June 2018.
- ^ Biography in Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9084909/Alan-Baker
- ^ Stolarsky, Kenneth B. (1978). "Review: Transcendental number theory by Alan Baker; Lectures on transcendental numbers by Kurt Mahler; Nombres transcendants by Michel Waldschmidt" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 84 (8): 1370–1378. doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1978-14584-4.
External links[]
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Alan Baker", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews
- Alan Baker at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Masser, David (January 2019). "Alan Baker 1939–2018" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 66 (1): 32–35. doi:10.1090/noti1753.
- 1939 births
- 2018 deaths
- 20th-century English mathematicians
- 21st-century English mathematicians
- Fields Medalists
- Number theorists
- Alumni of University College London
- Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
- Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge
- Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Foreign Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy
- Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars
- Cambridge mathematicians
- Mathematicians from London
- Deaths from cerebrovascular disease