Faltings Awarded Faisal Prize

Gerd Faltings of the Max-Planck Faltings was awarded the Fields Medal in 1986, Institute and the University of Bonn, primarily for his proof of the Mordell conjecture. has been awarded the King Faisal In 1922 Louis Mordell had conjectured that a Prize for Science for 2014 by the Faisal system of algebraic equations with rational coef- Foundation. Mathematics was the ficients that defines an algebraic curve of genus field selected for the award this year. greater than or equal to 2 (a surface with two or According to the prize citations, more “holes”) has only a finite number of rational Faltings “has made groundbreaking solutions that have no common factors. By proving contributions to algebraic geometry this, Faltings showed that xn + yn = zn could have and number theory. His work com- only a finite number of solutions in integers for bines ingenuity, vision, and technical n > 2, which was a major breakthrough in proving power. He has introduced stunning Fermat’s Last Theorem that this equation has no new tools and techniques which are natural number solutions for n > 2. now constantly used in modern math- Faltings was the recipient of a Guggenheim Gerd Faltings ematics. His deep insights into the Fellowship for Natural Sciences, United States p-adic cohomology of algebraic varie- and Canada, in 1988. In 1996, he received the ties have been crucial to modern developments Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche in number theory. His work on moduli spaces of Forschungsgemeinschaft, the highest honor abelian varieties has had great influence on arith- awarded in German research. metic algebraic geometry. He has introduced new Faltings’s publications include Rational Points geometric ideas and techniques in the theory of (1984), Degeneration of Abelian Varieties (with Diophantine approximation, leading to his proof Ching-Li Chai) (1990), and Lectures on the Arith- of Lang’s conjecture on rational points of abelian metic Riemann-Roch Theorem (1992). varieties and to a far-reaching generalization of The King Faisal International Prize is awarded the subspace theorem. Faltings has also made to “scientists and scholars whose research results important contributions to the theory of vector in significant advances in specific areas that ben- bundles on algebraic curves with his proof of the efit humanity.” The prize consists of a certificate Verlinde formula.” handwritten in Arabic calligraphy summarizing Gerd Faltings was born in Gelsenkirchen, Ger- the laureate’s work, a commemorative twenty-four many, in 1954. He studied mathematics and carat gold medal uniquely cast for each prize, and physics at the University of Münster and received a cash award of 750,000 Saudi riyal (approximately his Ph.D. in mathematics there in 1978, as well as US$200,000). The science prize is given alternately the habilitation in mathematics in 1981. He has in mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology. been an assistant professor at the University of Münster, a professor at the University of Wup- — Elaine Kehoe pertal (1982–1984), and a professor at Princeton University (1985–1996). He is currently a director of the Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1118

500 Notices of the AMS Volume 61, Number 5