Preda Mihăilescu

Preda V. Mihăilescu is a Romanian mathematician, best known for his proof of the 158-year-old Catalan's conjecture.

Biography

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 PhD from ETH Zürich in 1997. His PhD 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 University of Göttingen.

Major research

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.