Paul T. Bateman

Paul Trevier Bateman (June 6, 1919 – December 26, 2012)[1] was an American number theorist, known for formulating the Bateman–Horn conjecture on the density of prime number values generated by systems of polynomials[2] and the New Mersenne conjecture relating the occurrences of Mersenne primes and Wagstaff primes.[3]

Born in Philadelphia,[4] Bateman received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1946, under the supervision of Hans Rademacher.[5] After temporary positions at Yale University and the Institute for Advanced Study,[6] he joined in 1950 the mathematics department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was department chair for 15 years and was subsequently an emeritus professor.[7] He was the doctoral advisor of 20 students, including Marvin Knopp, Kevin McCurley, and George B. Purdy.[5][7]

Bateman was a member of the American Mathematical Society for 71 years. He served as an associate secretary for 16 years, a member of the board of trustees for 4 years, and a member of the Mathematical Reviews Committee for 5 years.[8]

  1. ^ "In Memoriam: Paul T. Bateman". University of Illinois Department of Mathematics. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  2. ^ Bateman, Paul T.; Horn, Roger A. (1962). "A heuristic asymptotic formula concerning the distribution of prime numbers". Mathematics of Computation. 16 (79): 363–367. doi:10.2307/2004056. JSTOR 2004056. MR 0148632.
  3. ^ Bateman, Paul T.; Selfridge, John L.; Wagstaff, Samuel S. Jr. (1987). "The new Mersenne conjecture". American Mathematical Monthly. 96: 125–128. doi:10.2307/2323195. JSTOR 2323195. MR 0992073.
  4. ^ American Men and Women of Science: The physical and biological sciences. 2006-11-10. Retrieved 2017-01-16.
  5. ^ a b Paul Trevier Bateman at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. ^ "A Community of Scholars | Institute for Advanced Study". www.ias.edu. Archived from the original on 27 May 2010. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  7. ^ a b "Number Theory Faculty Research, Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign". Math.uiuc.edu. Archived from the original on 2001-02-23. Retrieved 2017-01-16.
  8. ^ American Mathematical Society Lists of Past Officers