David Masser

{{ Infobox scientist

| name = David Masser

| image = David Masser.jpg

| image_size = 250px

| caption =

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRS}}

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1948|11|08|df=y}}

| birth_place = London, United Kingdom

| death_date =

| death_place =

| fields = Mathematics

| workplaces = University of Basel

| alma_mater = University of Cambridge

| doctoral_advisor = Alan Baker

| doctoral_students = Philipp Habegger{{br}}Paula Tretkoff

| known_for = Masser–Gramain constant
Oesterlé–Masser conjecture
Sparsely totient number

| awards = ICM Speaker (1983){{br}}Humboldt Prize (1991){{br}}{{no wrap|Fellow of the Royal Society (2005)}}{{br}}{{no wrap|Member of the Academia Europaea (2014)}}

| website =

}}

David William Masser (born 8 November 1948) {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRS}} is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Basel.{{cite web |url=https://dmi.unibas.ch/en/persons/david-masser/ |website=University of Basel |title=Prof. Dr. David Masser |access-date=5 March 2021}} He is known for his work in transcendental number theory, Diophantine approximation, and Diophantine geometry. With Joseph Oesterlé in 1985, Masser formulated the abc conjecture, which has been called "the most important unsolved problem in Diophantine analysis".{{Citation |authorlink=Dorian Goldfeld |first=Dorian |last=Goldfeld |title=Beyond the last theorem |journal=The Sciences |date=March–April 1996 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=34–40 |doi=10.1002/j.2326-1951.1996.tb03243.x }}.

Early life and education

Masser was born on 8 November 1948 in London, England.{{cite web |url=https://dmi.unibas.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/dmi/Forschung/Mathematik/Zahlentheorie/CV_Masser_April20.pdf |title=Curriculum Vitae and Publication list of D. W. Masser |website=University of Basel |date=14 February 2020 |access-date=5 March 2021}} He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge with a B.A. (Hons) in 1970. In 1974, he obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, with a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Alan Baker titled Elliptic Functions and Transcendence.{{MathGenealogy |id=7915 }}

Career

Masser was a Lecturer at the University of Nottingham from 1973 to 1975, before spending the 1975–1976 year as a Research Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He returned to the University of Nottingham to serve as a Lecturer from 1976 to 1979 and then as a Reader from 1979 to 1983. He was a professor at the University of Michigan from 1983 to 1992. He then moved to the Mathematics Institute at the University of Basel and became emeritus there in 2014.

Research

Masser's research focuses on transcendental number theory, Diophantine approximation, and Diophantine geometry. The abc conjecture originated as the outcome of attempts by Oesterlé and Masser to understand the Szpiro conjecture about elliptic curves.{{citation|title=Arithmetic deformation theory via arithmetic fundamental groups and nonarchimedean theta functions, notes on the work of Shinichi Mochizuki|journal= European Journal of Mathematics|first=Ivan|last=Fesenko|volume=1 |issue=3| pages=405–440 | year=2015 |url=https://www.maths.nottingham.ac.uk/personal/ibf/notesoniut.pdf |doi=10.1007/s40879-015-0066-0|s2cid= 52085917|doi-access=free}}.

Awards

Masser was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Warsaw in 1983.{{cite web |url=https://www.ias.edu/scholars/david-w-masser |website=Institute for Advanced Study |title=David W. Masser |date=9 December 2019 |access-date=5 March 2021}} In 1991, he received the Humboldt Prize. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005. In 2014, he was elected as a Member of the Academia Europaea.