Yuri Valentinovich Nesterenko

Yuri Valentinovich Nesterenko (Russian: Ю́рий Валенти́нович Нестере́нко; born December 5, 1946 in Kharkiv, USSR now Ukraine) is a Soviet and Russian mathematician who has written papers in algebraic independence theory and transcendental number theory.

Yuri Nesterenko at the workshop "Diophantic Approximations" in Oberwolfach, 2007

In 1997 he was awarded the Ostrowski Prize for his proof that the numbers π and e^π are algebraically independent. In fact, he proved the stronger result:

• the numbers π, e^π, and Γ(1/4) are algebraically independent over Q.
• the numbers π, ${\displaystyle e^{\pi {\sqrt {3}}}}$, and Γ(1/3) are algebraically independent over Q.
• for all positive integers n, the numbers π, ${\displaystyle e^{\pi {\sqrt {n}}}}$ are algebraically independent over Q.

He is a professor at Moscow State University, where he completed the mechanical-mathematical program in 1969, then the doctorate program (Soviet habilitation) in 1973, became a professor of the Number Theory Department in 1992.

He studied under Andrei Borisovich Shidlovskii. Nesterenko's students have included Wadim Zudilin.