From: Simon Plouffe To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Subject: [math-fun] about Grothendieck ...
I am not aware of Bourbaki-style in reading Grothendieck.
hello, Alexander Grothendieck was a member of Bourbaki for years. From 1957 to 1962 at the least. reference : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondements_de_la_G%C3%A9ometrie_Alg%C3%A9brique and here : http://www.numdam.org/numdam-bin/search?h=aur&aur=Grothendieck,+Alexander&fo... for example this document : http://archive.numdam.org/ARCHIVE/PMIHES/PMIHES_1963__17_/PMIHES_1963__17__5... which is from 1963, from what I can see this is the purest Bourbaki style of mathematics. ... A.G. is a great master of higher mathematics. 2 things could happen, in 200 years this will look like trivial or something else will come out in a complete different direction ? What will prevail is the principle of l'économie de pensée, i.e. the shortest and simplest way to explain things. Maybe that guy was 400 years ahead of his time ? Well, this was 50 years ago and as far as I can tell, there is no simplification that came out. I had a personal friend (Pierre Bouchard) in Montréal, recently deceased, he was a specialist of Grothendieck's work, we (some friends and I) asked him many times, how come this is interesting ?, tell us! please!, He could hardly give any example. We all stumbled on the first books of Bourbaki (he had them all). That example of the definition of the empty set was a subject of discussion, lots of it, nothing came out of all this. Maybe as they say in the 'le monde' article that the subconscious of mathematicians is haunted by that guy and what he did, I am not certain of this. This is my personal opinion. Best regards, Simon Plouffe
Perhaps we can agree he was a bird, as opposed to a frog: http://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf%3Fq%3Dbirds-and-frogs
On Nov 16, 2014, at 5:26 PM, Simon Plouffe <simon.plouffe@gmail.com> wrote:
hello,
Alexander Grothendieck was a member of Bourbaki for years. From 1957 to 1962 at the least.
reference : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondements_de_la_G%C3%A9ometrie_Alg%C3%A9brique
and here : http://www.numdam.org/numdam-bin/search?h=aur&aur=Grothendieck,+Alexander&fo...
for example this document : http://archive.numdam.org/ARCHIVE/PMIHES/PMIHES_1963__17_/PMIHES_1963__17__5...
which is from 1963, from what I can see this is the purest Bourbaki style of mathematics.
... A.G. is a great master of higher mathematics.
2 things could happen, in 200 years this will look like trivial or something else will come out in a complete different direction ? What will prevail is the principle of l'économie de pensée, i.e. the shortest and simplest way to explain things. Maybe that guy was 400 years ahead of his time ? Well, this was 50 years ago and as far as I can tell, there is no simplification that came out.
I had a personal friend (Pierre Bouchard) in Montréal, recently deceased, he was a specialist of Grothendieck's work, we (some friends and I) asked him many times, how come this is interesting ?, tell us! please!, He could hardly give any example. We all stumbled on the first books of Bourbaki (he had them all). That example of the definition of the empty set was a subject of discussion, lots of it, nothing came out of all this.
Maybe as they say in the 'le monde' article that the subconscious of mathematicians is haunted by that guy and what he did, I am not certain of this. This is my personal opinion.
Best regards, Simon Plouffe
Hello Simon, should you meet Pierre Deligne somewhere, ask him about the work of Grothendieck, I think he could give you a lot of very clear examples about "géométrie algébrique". And Pierre Deligne (a Fields medaillist) speaks French. Best, É. Catapulté de mon aPhone
Le 16 nov. 2014 à 23:27, "Simon Plouffe" <simon.plouffe@gmail.com> a écrit :
hello,
Alexander Grothendieck was a member of Bourbaki for years. From 1957 to 1962 at the least.
reference : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondements_de_la_G%C3%A9ometrie_Alg%C3%A9brique
and here : http://www.numdam.org/numdam-bin/search?h=aur&aur=Grothendieck,+Alexander&fo...
for example this document : http://archive.numdam.org/ARCHIVE/PMIHES/PMIHES_1963__17_/PMIHES_1963__17__5...
which is from 1963, from what I can see this is the purest Bourbaki style of mathematics.
... A.G. is a great master of higher mathematics.
2 things could happen, in 200 years this will look like trivial or something else will come out in a complete different direction ? What will prevail is the principle of l'économie de pensée, i.e. the shortest and simplest way to explain things. Maybe that guy was 400 years ahead of his time ? Well, this was 50 years ago and as far as I can tell, there is no simplification that came out.
I had a personal friend (Pierre Bouchard) in Montréal, recently deceased, he was a specialist of Grothendieck's work, we (some friends and I) asked him many times, how come this is interesting ?, tell us! please!, He could hardly give any example. We all stumbled on the first books of Bourbaki (he had them all). That example of the definition of the empty set was a subject of discussion, lots of it, nothing came out of all this.
Maybe as they say in the 'le monde' article that the subconscious of mathematicians is haunted by that guy and what he did, I am not certain of this. This is my personal opinion.
Best regards, Simon Plouffe
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hello, I think he is at the IAS in Princeton, not in France (?). Simon Plouffe
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