Faltings's theorem is a result in arithmetic geometry, according to which a curve of genus greater than 1 over the field of rational numbers has only finitely many rational points. This was conjectured in 1922 by Louis Mordell, and known as the Mordell conjecture until its 1983 proof by Gerd Faltings. The conjecture was later generalized by replacing by any number field.

Louis Joel Mordell was an American-born British mathematician, known for pioneering research in number theory. He was born in Philadelphia, United States, in a Jewish family of Lithuanian extraction.