David William Masser (born 11 August 1948) is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Basel, in Basel, Switzerland. He obtained his Ph.D. from University of Cambridge in 1974 on the topic of Elliptic Functions and Transcendence.
Before his appointment at the Mathematics Institute in Basel, Masser taught at the University of Michigan. He is known for his work in number theory, and was elected to the Royal Society in 2005.
Along with Joseph Oesterlé, Masser formulated the abc conjecture in 1985. It has been stated that this conjecture "is the most important unsolved problem in Diophantine analysis". An example of diophantine analysis would be the attempt to solve Fermat's last theorem.
Famous quotes containing the word david:
“This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice.... It indicates better than any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the season, being least affected by transient changes of temperature. A severe cold of a few days duration in March may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, while the temperature of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)