Quick Facts
Biography
Preda V. Mihăilescu (born May 23, 1955) is a Romanian mathematician, best known for his proof of the 158-year-old Catalan's conjecture.
History
Born in Bucharest, he is the brother of Vintilă Mihăilescu.
After leaving Romania in 1973, he settled in Switzerland. He studied mathematics and computer science in Zürich, receiving a Ph.D. from ETH Zürich in 1997. His Ph.D. thesis, titled Cyclotomy of rings and primality testing, was written under the direction of Erwin Engeler and Hendrik Lenstra.
For several years, he did research at the University of Paderborn, Germany. Since 2005, he has held a professorship at the Georg-August University of Göttingen.
Main results
In 2002, Mihăilescu proved Catalan's conjecture. This number-theoretical conjecture, formulated by the French and Belgian mathematician Eugène Charles Catalan in 1844, had stood unresolved for 158 years. Mihăilescu's proof appeared in Crelle's Journal in 2004. The result is now occasionally known as Mihăilescu's theorem.
In 2009, Mihăilescu announced a proof of Leopoldt's conjecture for all number fields.