English
mathematician whose chief work has been devoted to the study of transcendental
numbers (numbers that cannot be expressed as roots or as the solution
of an algebraic equation with rational coefficients).
- Baker was born
in London and studied mathematics there and at Cambridge.
- He remained
at Cambridge, except for many visiting professorships abroad, becoming
professor 1974.
- In 1966 he extended
French mathematician Joseph
Liouville's original proof of the existence
of transcendental numbers by means of continued fractions, by obtaining
a result on linear forms in the logarithms of algebraic numbers.
- This solution
opened the way to the resolution of a wide range of Diophantine problems
and in 1967 Baker used his results to provide the first useful theorems
concerning the theory of these problems.
- Apart from individual
papers, Baker's most important publication is Transcendental Number
Theory 1975.
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