tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1167440229115869982006-12-29T18:57:00.000-06:002006-12-29T18:57:00.000-06:00Sure, Terry has written an important paper with number-theoretic conclusions, but it's very misleading to call him a number theorist (and I don't believe he would call himself one). He's an analyst. Virtually all of his papers are not in number theory, and he doesn't have a lot of background in number theory or follow much of the number theory literature. He's probably more a number theorist than Manindra Agrawal is (to pick another prominent example of a non-number theorist who has proved a great theorem in number theory), but not overwhelmingly.<BR/><BR/>The second commenter seems to think this opinion is a form of snobbery, but I don't intend it that way. Terry's a brilliant mathematician who can do whatever sort of research he wants, but his background and primary interests are not in number theory.<BR/><BR/>(By the way, I don't know of anybody who thinks only algebraic number theory counts as number theory.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com