Alan Baker

Alan Baker (born August 19, 1939, London, England—died February 4, 2018, Cambridge) was a British mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970 for his work in number theory.

Baker attended University College, London (B.S., 1961), and Trinity College, Cambridge (M.A. and Ph.D., 1964). He held an appointment at University College (1964–65) and then joined the faculty of Trinity College in 1966.

Baker received the Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice, France, in 1970. His work showed, at least in theory, that it is possible to determine all the solutions explicitly for a large class of equations. Building on the work of the Norwegian Axel Thue, the German Carl Ludwig Siegel, and the Briton Klaus Friedrich Roth, Baker showed that for a diophantine equation f(x, y) = m, m being a positive integer and f(x, y) an irreducible binary form of degree n ≥ 3 with integer coefficients, there is an effective bound B that only depends on n and the coefficients of the function, so that max (|x₀|, |y₀|) ≤ B, for any solution (x₀, y₀).

This work was related to Baker’s considerable generalization of the Gelfond-Schneider theorem (Hilbert’s seventh problem), which states that, if α and β are algebraic, α ≠ 0, 1, and β is irrational, then α^β is transcendental (not a solution of any algebraic equation). Baker’s generalization states that, if α₁,…, α_k (≠ 0, 1) are algebraic, if 1, β₁,…, β_k are linearly independent over the rationals, and if all the β_i are irrational algebraic numbers, then α₁^β₁⋯α_k^β_k is transcendental. The Hungarian Paul Turán remarked in his description of Baker’s work in the proceedings of the Nice Congress that his achievement was made all the more impressive by the German David Hilbert’s prediction that the Riemann hypothesis, which remains unproved, would be settled long before the proof of the transcendence of α^β.

Baker’s publications included Transcendental Number Theory (1975).