Nagell, Trygve (1895-)

Norwegian mathematician whose most important work was in the fields of abstract algebra and number theory. Nagell was born and educated in Oslo, and remained at Oslo university until 1931, when he became professor at Uppsala, Sweden, retiring 1962. Nagell first made his name with a series of papers in the early 1920s on indeterminate equations, investigations which led to the publication of a treatise on indeterminate analysis in 1929. He also published papers and books, in Swedish and English, on number theory. From the late 1920s onwards his chief interest was the study of algebraic numbers, and his 1931 study of algebraic rings was perhaps his most important contribution to abstract algebra.