Christopher Hooley. 7 August 1928—13 December 2018

Abstract

Christopher Hooley was one of the leading analytic number theorists of his day, world-wide. His early work on Artin’s conjecture for primitive roots remains the definitive investigation in the area. His greatest contribution, however, was the introduction of exponential sums into every corner of analytic number theory, bringing the power of Deligne’s ‘Riemann hypothesis’ for varieties over finite fields to bear throughout the subject. For many he was a figure who bridged the classical period of Hardy and Littlewood with the modern era. This biographical sketch describes how he succeeded in applying the latest tools to famous old problems.