Gerhard Frey

Gerhard Frey (born: 1944) is a German mathematician, known for his work in number theory. The Frey curve was an inspired construction of an elliptic curve from a purported solution to the Fermat equation.

He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Tübingen, graduating in 1967. He continued his postgraduate studies in Heidelberg where he received the Ph.D. degree in 1970 and his "Habilitation" in 1973. He was assistant professor at the University of Heidelberg from 1969-1973, professor at the University of Erlangen (1973-1975) and at the University of Saarbrücken (1975-1990) and currently holds a chair for number theory at the Institute for Experimental Mathematics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, campus Essen.

His research areas are number theory and arithmetical geometry as well as applications to coding theory and cryptography. He was a visiting scientist at several universities and research institutions, including The Ohio State University, Harvard University, University of California at Berkeley, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and IMPA in Rio de Janeiro.

Frey was co-editor of the "Manuscripta Mathematica". He was awarded the Gauss medal of the "Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft" in 1996 for his work on Fermat's Last Theorem. Since 1998 he has been a member of the Academy of Sciences of Göttingen, Germany.

In 1998, Frey proposed the idea of Weil Descent Attack for elliptic curves over finite fields with composite degree. As a result of this attack, cryptographers lost their interest in these curves.