Guy Terjanian is a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

-Armenian mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 who has worked on algebraic number theory

Number theory

Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...

. He achieved his Ph.D under Claude Chevalley

Claude Chevalley

Claude Chevalley was a French mathematician who made important contributions to number theory, algebraic geometry, class field theory, finite group theory, and the theory of algebraic groups...

 in 1966, and at that time published a counterexample to the original form of a conjecture of Emil Artin

Emil Artin

Emil Artin was an Austrian-American mathematician of Armenian descent.-Parents:Emil Artin was born in Vienna to parents Emma Maria, née Laura , a soubrette on the operetta stages of Austria and Germany, and Emil Hadochadus Maria Artin, Austrian-born of Armenian descent...

, which suitably modified had just been proved as the Ax-Kochen theorem.

In 1977, he proved that if p is an odd prime number, and the natural numbers x, y and z satisfy , then 2p must divide x or y.

Further reading

• math.unicaen.fr article Topic: Arithmetic & geometry