Questions tagged [grothendieck]

Alexander Grothendieck (1928-2014) was a French mathematician (born in Germany) and Fields medal winner. He made important contributions in topology, algebra and logic.

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Why a second edition of EGA was never published?

Grothendieck's Éléments de géométrie algébrique, also known as EGA, was originally devised to consist of thirteen volumes (as stated in the introduction of the first volume), from which Grothendieck ...
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Who were the attendees to the SGA5 seminar?

Here is a photograph of the audience of SGA5. Other photographs may be viewed from the homepage: https://agrothendieck.github.io/ Grothendieck is facing the audience. I recognise Dieudonne at the ...
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Where can I find Grothendieck's letter of resignation from Bourbaki?

I encountered Grothendieck's resignation letter from Bourbaki along with its English translation not too long ago on the web, but for now it seems it's nowhere to be found. I've scoured through the ...
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Alexander Grothendieck's "stolen" correspondence in 1985?

On the website that now displays the part of Grothendieck's archives that had been held at the University of Montpellier, it is mentioned that: Dans une lettre adressée à Monsieur Lefranc datée du 13 ...
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Story of Grothendieck's Prime Number

There is a story about Alexander Grothendieck and the "Grothendieck Prime" 57, which goes roughly as follows (cf. this wikipedia article): In a mathematical conversation, someone suggested to ...
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Grothendieck and the Gaussian integral

This article goes something like this: In a discussion with Grothendieck, Messing mentioned the formula expressing the integral of $\exp(-x^2)$ in terms of $\pi$, which is proved in every calculus ...
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Why are étale morphisms called "étale"?

Alexander Grothendieck developed the theory of "locally trivial coverings spaces for rings/schemes" in SGAI as an analog to the theory of covering spaces in algebraic topology. He called such ...
15 votes
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How did Grothendieck encounter and adopt the categorical language?

Apparently the first mathematical publication of Grothendieck where he uses the terms “functor” and “category” in the technical sense is the Kansas report. From where Grothendieck had knowledge of ...
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What is known about Grothendieck's capacity of work?

A lot has been said about Grothendieck's capacity of work, but what we know? (with references if possible) how was the work-day of Grothendieck, how many hours to day, what about his sleep? What is ...
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Did Grothendieck really say that he felt "clumsy, even oafish, wandering painfully up an arduous track"?

Here I found the following quote, attributed to the great Grothendieck: Since then I’ve had the chance in the world of mathematics that bid me welcome, to meet quite a number of people, both among my ...
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Grothendieck and elementary topos

I would like to know some references (if any) for the claim that Grothendieck didn't like the idea of elementary topos.
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Grothendieck's approach to solving problems

Alexander Grothendieck is known to have revolutionized several areas of mathematics. His insights were very deep, original and revolutionary. Time after time he showed that he could see in ways that ...
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Why did algebraic geometry need Alexander Grothendieck?

Grothendieck is arguably the most brilliant mathematician of the 20th century, with his influence felt the most in algebraic geometry, which he transformed. Some time ago the story used to be told was ...
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Where had Alexander Grothendieck been all this time? [closed]

Recently, I heard that the great Grothendieck has passed away (RIP). But until last year I've been aware that he is lost from the world. So how could they figure out his death? My resources on this ...
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