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Gisbert Wüstholz

Gisbert Wüstholz is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Gisbert Wüstholz rather than just read about it. In short: Gisbert Wüstholz (born 4 June 1948, in Tuttlingen, Germany) is a German mathematician internationally known for his fundamental contributions to number theory (in the field of transcendental number theory, Diophantine approximation) and arithmetic geometry. Early life and education Gisbert Wüstholz was born in 1948 in Tuttlingen and studied from 1967 to 1973 at the University of Freiburg where he finished his PhD un…

Gisbert Wüstholz — main illustration
Gisbert Wüstholz — illustration

Key takeaways

  • Gisbert Wüstholz belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
  • Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
  • Connect Gisbert Wüstholz to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
  • Reproduce the core statement of Gisbert Wüstholz from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Gisbert Wüstholz (born 4 June 1948, in Tuttlingen, Germany) is a German mathematician internationally known for his fundamental contributions to number theory (in the field of transcendental number theory, Diophantine approximation) and arithmetic geometry.

Early life and education Gisbert Wüstholz was born in 1948 in Tuttlingen and studied from 1967 to 1973 at the University of Freiburg where he finished his PhD under the supervision of Theodor Schneider in 1978.

Career On the invitation of Friedrich Hirzebruch, Wüstholz stayed for a year as a Postdoc at the University of Bonn, and then he got a Postdoc position at the University of Wuppertal, where he worked with Walter Borho from 1979 till 1984, and then moved to Bonn to become associate professor at the newly founded Max Planck Institute for Mathematics. From 1985 to 1987 he was full Professor for Mathematics at Wuppertal, and in 1987 elected for a chair in Mathematics at ETH Zurich. He founded the Zurich Graduate School in Mathematics in 2003, and served as the director since then until 2008. Since 2013 he is a professor emeritus at ETH Zurich. He is Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (since 2000), of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (since 2003), of the Academia Europaea (since 2008) where he was chairman of the Mathematics Section from 2011 to 2013, and of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (since 2016). From 1999 he was an Honorary Advisory Professor at the Tongji University, Shanghai. From 2011 he was Senator for Mathematics at the Leopoldina. He is an Honorary Professor at Graz University of Technology, Austria (since 2017). Wüstholz stayed for extended periods at a number of universities and research institutes, such as the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (1984,1988) and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Bures-sur-Yvette (1987). He was member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1986, 1990, 1994/95, 2011), in 1992 he was Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College in Cambridge for research projects with Alan Baker, and visited in the following year the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley (1993). He was frequently a guest at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics at Bonn, and the Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematics and Physics (ESI) at Vienna. Since 2015 he is staying as a guest at the University of Zurich. In the academic year 2017/18 he was Senior Research Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). Since 1980 Wüstholz has close connections to a number of universities in Asia: he stayed for a couple of months each at Kyushu University at Fukuoka (1992), the Morningside Center of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at Beijing, at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (1996, 1997, 2006, 2010) and at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) (1999, 2011, 2012). Several visits took him to the Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (VIASM) (2010, 2017), to the Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) and to the National Taiwan University at Taipei (2009, 2013, 2016). In 1986 Wüstholz delivered an invited address at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Berkeley, in 1992 the Mordell Lecture in Cambridge, in 2001 the 13th Kuwait foundation lecture, an invited lecture at the Leonhard Euler Festival in St. Petersburg in 2007 on the occasion of the celebration of Leonhard Euler’s 300th birthday, and the Academy Lecture at Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2008.

Research Wüstholz's research interests are Diophantine approximation, Transcendental number theory, and Hodge theory. Highlights of his scientific work are his Analytic subgroup theorem, his proof of the abelian analogue of Lindemann's theorem, his joint work with Gerd Faltings on the Schmidt subspace theorem, his joint work with David Masser on isogeny estimates for abelian varieties, and his joint work with Alan Baker on linear forms in logarithms.

Selected publications

Books Gerd Faltings, Gisbert Wüstholz et al.. Rational Points. Aspects of Mathematics, E6. Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig (1st ed. 1984, 2nd ed. 1986), 3rd ed., 1992. Papers from the seminar held at the Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematick, Bonn/Wuppertal, 1983/1984, with an appendix by Wüstholz in 3rd ed. Wüstholz, Gisbert (2002). A Panorama of Number Theory or the View from Baker's Garden (editor). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-80799-9. MR 1975726. Baker, Alan; Wüstholz, Gisbert (2007). Logarithmic Forms and Diophantine Geometry. New Mathematical Monographs. Vol. 9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-88268-2. MR 2382891. Huber, Annette; Wüstholz, Gisbert (26 May 2022). Transcendence and Linear Relations of 1-Periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-316-51993-6.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Gisbert Wüstholz: Wüstholz at Oberwolfach, 2005
Wüstholz at Oberwolfach, 2005

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gisbert Wüstholz

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gisbert Wüstholz claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gisbert Wüstholz before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gisbert Wüstholz ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gisbert Wüstholz

In research
Gisbert Wüstholz appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry
Engineering practice reuses Gisbert Wüstholz in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom
Gisbert Wüstholz is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1948 births, 20th-century German mathematicians, 21st-century German mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life
Look for Gisbert Wüstholz outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.
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How to study Gisbert Wüstholz in 20 minutes

  1. Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
  2. Close the page and write down what Gisbert Wüstholz means in your own words.
  3. Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
  4. Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
  5. Explain Gisbert Wüstholz out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gisbert Wüstholz in simple terms?

Gisbert Wüstholz (born 4 June 1948, in Tuttlingen, Germany) is a German mathematician internationally known for his fundamental contributions to number theory (in the field of transcendental number theory, Diophantine approximation) and arithmetic geometry. Early life and education Gisbert Wüstholz…

Why does Gisbert Wüstholz matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gisbert Wüstholz?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gisbert Wüstholz.

Tags

  • 1948 births
  • 20th-century German mathematicians
  • 21st-century German mathematicians
  • Academic staff of ETH Zurich
  • Arithmetic geometers
  • Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars
  • Living people
  • University of Freiburg alumni

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