No label defined (Q4242006)

The paper surveys and illustrates a recent proof of the Mordell-Lang Conjecture for function fields in arbitrary characteristic, due to the author and founded on a new approach, with a significant use of model theoretic methods. Indeed, as the introduction of the paper underlines, ``the proof follows naturally from model theoretic tools''. Accordingly the author exposes and discusses here the model theory involved in the proof: minimal structures, local modularity, Zil'ber's Conjecture, Zariski geometries, and so on. At the end of the paper, a short survey of the basic steps of the proof is provided. But the article is also the occasion of a brief but very nice and enjoyable history of model theory, since Tarski and Abraham Robinson until this relevant application, and other ones. The growth of model theory is described from the perspective of these latest trends; also discussed is its relationship with geometry and, more generally, its role in determining ``the geography of tame mathematics'', and in providing the real foundations of ``geometric paradises in which many geometric constructions can be carried out, with a guarantee of not encountering any pathological set''. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0899.00015].