mathematician university professor
He studied mathematics and computer science in Zürich, receiving a Doctor of Philosophy from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich in 1997. His Doctor of Philosophy thesis, titled Cyclotomy of rings and primality testing, was written under the direction of Erwin Engeler and Hendrik Lenstra.
Born in Bucharest, he is the brother of Vintilă Mihăilescu. After leaving Romania in 1973, he settled in Switzerland. Foreign several years, he did research at the University of Paderborn, Germany.
Since 2005, he has held a professorship at the Georg-August University of Göttingen.
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. The result is now occasionally known as Mihăilescu"s theorem.
In 2009, Mihăilescu announced a proof of Leopoldt"s conjecture for all number fields.
