Gerd Faltings | |
|---|---|
 Faltings in 2005 | |
| Born | (1954-07-28)28 July 1954 (age 71) |
| Alma mater | University of Münster |
| Known for | |
| Awards | Dannie Heineman Prize (1983) Fields Medal (1986) ICM Speaker (1986, 1994) Guggenheim Fellowship (1988) Leibniz Prize (1996) Von Staudt Prize (2008) Heinz Gumin Prize (2010) King Faisal International Prize (2014) Shaw Prize (2015) ForMemRS (2016) Cantor Medal (2017) Pour le Mérite (2024) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | Max Planck Institute for Mathematics University of Bonn Princeton University University of Wuppertal |
| Doctoral advisor | Hans-Joachim Nastold |
| Doctoral students | |
| Website | www |
Gerd Faltings (German pronunciation:[ɡɛʁtˈfaltɪŋs]ⓘ; born 28 July 1954) is a Germanmathematician known for his work inarithmetic geometry.[3][4] He was awarded theFields Medal in 1986 for his proofs of theMordell Conjecture and several related conjectures.[5][6]
From 1972 to 1978, Faltings studiedmathematics andphysics at theUniversity of Münster. Interrupted by 15 months of obligatory military service, he received hisPhD in mathematics in 1978.[4][7][8]
In 1981 he obtained thevenia legendi (Habilitation) in mathematics, from theUniversity of Münster. During this time he was an assistant professor at the University of Münster. From 1982 to 1984, he wasprofessor at theUniversity of Wuppertal.[9]
From 1985 to 1994, he was professor atPrinceton University. In the fall of 1988 and in the academic year 1992–1993 he was a visiting scholar at theInstitute for Advanced Study.[10]
In 1986 he was awarded theFields Medal at theICM at Berkeley for proving theTate conjecture for abelian varieties over number fields, theShafarevich conjecture for abelian varieties over number fields and theMordell conjecture,[11][12] which states that any non-singular projective curve of genusg > 1 defined over a number fieldK contains only finitely manyK-rational points. As a Fields Medalist he gave an ICM plenary talkRecent progress in arithmetic algebraic geometry.
In 1994 as anICM invited speaker in Zurich he gave a talkMumford-Stabilität in der algebraischen Geometrie. Extending methods ofPaul Vojta, he proved theMordell–Lang conjecture,[13] which is a generalization of the Mordell conjecture. Together withGisbert Wüstholz,[14] he reprovedRoth's theorem, for which Roth had been awarded the Fields medal in 1958.
In 1994, he returned to Germany and from 1994 to 2018, he was a director of theMax Planck Institute for Mathematics inBonn. In 1996, he received theGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of theDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research.
Faltings has been the formal supervisor of over a dozen students, includingShinichi Mochizuki,[1]Wieslawa Niziol,[2] andNikolai Dourov.
Faltings married Angelika in 1984; she died in 2011.[15]
