Education
He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Tübingen, graduating in 1967. He continued his postgraduate studies in Heidelberg University where he received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1970 and his Habilitation in 1973.
He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Tübingen, graduating in 1967. He continued his postgraduate studies in Heidelberg University where he received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1970 and his Habilitation in 1973.
His Frey curve, a construction of an elliptic curve from a purported solution to the Fermat equation, was central to Wiles" proof of Fermat"s Last Theorem. He was assistant professor at the Heidelberg University from 1969–1973, professor at the University of Erlangen (1973–1975) and at the Saarland University (1975–1990) and until 2009 held a chair for number theory at the Institute for Experimental Mathematics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, campus Essen. He was a visiting scientist at several universities and research institutions, including Ohio State University, Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada in Rio de Janeiro.
Frey was co-editor of the Manuscripta Mathematica.
His research areas are number theory and arithmetical geometry as well as applications to coding theory and cryptography. In 1985 Frey pointed out a connection between Fermat"s last theorem and the Taniyama conjecture, and this connection was made precise shortly thereafter by Kenneth Ribet, who proved that the Taniyama conjecture implies Fermat"s last theorem.
This approach provided a framework for the subsequent successful attack on Fermat"s last theorem by Andrew Wiles in the 1990s. In 1998, Frey proposed the idea of Weil descent attack for elliptic curves over finite fields with composite degree.
As a result of this attack, cryptographers lost their interest in these curves.
Frey was awarded the Gauss medal of the Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft in 1996 for his work on Fermat"s Last Theorem. Since 1998 he has been a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. In 2006 he received the Certicom Electronic Communications Committee Visionary Award for his contributions to elliptic curve cryptography.
Göttingen Academy of Sciences]
Since 1998 he has been a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences.
