Preda Mihăilescu

Preda Mihăilescu
Born (1955-05-23) May 23, 1955
Bucharest, Romania
Nationality Romanian
Fields Mathematics
Institutions University of Göttingen
Alma mater ETH Zürich
Doctoral advisor Erwin Engeler
Hendrik Lenstra
Known for proving
Catalan's conjecture

Preda V. Mihăilescu (born May 23, 1955) is a Romanian mathematician, best known for his proof of the 158-year-old Catalan's conjecture.

History

Born in Bucharest, he is the brother of Vintilă Mihăilescu.

After leaving Romania in 1973, he settled in Switzerland. He studied mathematics and computer science in Zürich, receiving a Ph.D. from ETH Zürich in 1997. His Ph.D. thesis, titled Cyclotomy of rings and primality testing,[1] was written under the direction of Erwin Engeler and Hendrik Lenstra.

For several years, he did research at the University of Paderborn, Germany. Since 2005, he has held a professorship at the Georg-August University of Göttingen.

Main results

In 2002, Mihăilescu proved Catalan's conjecture.[2][3][4] This number-theoretical conjecture, formulated by the French and Belgian mathematician Eugène Charles Catalan in 1844, had stood unresolved for 158 years. Mihăilescu's proof appeared in Crelle's Journal in 2004. The result is now occasionally known as Mihăilescu's theorem.

In 2009, Mihăilescu announced a proof of Leopoldt's conjecture for all number fields.[5]

Notes

  1. Mihăilescu 1997.
  2. Metsänkylä 2004.
  3. Schoof 2008.
  4. Bilu et al. 2014.
  5. Mihăilescu 2009.

References

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