doctoral_advisor birth_place awards nationality fields workplaces birth_date known_for residence image article_title name alma_mater
robert langlands san antonio , texas chauvenet -rrb- prize -lrb- 2003 -rrb- fulkerson prize -lrb- 2009 american mathematics university of pittsburgh university of michigan 04 june 1958 proving kepler conjecture united states halescropped.jpg thomas callister hales
 thomas hales princeton university
thomas callister hales

thomas callister hales -lrb- born june 4 , 1958 -rrb- is an american mathematician working on the langlands program .
he is known in the area for having worked on the fundamental lemma , and proving a special case of it over the group sp -lrb- 4 -rrb- .
many of his ideas were incorporated into the final proof , due to ngô bảo châu .
he is also known for his 1998 computer-aided proof of the kepler conjecture , a centuries-old problem in discrete geometry which states that the most space-efficient way to pack spheres is in a pyramid shape .
hales also proved the honeycomb conjecture .
