Alexandre Grothendieck (1928–2014) left behind about a hundred thousand pages of notes and other writings, at least sixteen thousand of them on mathematical subjects (see Tangente 189, 2019). Their publication online offers an opportunity to revisit their contents, as well as their author's life, career and immense scientific stature.
Alexandre Grothendieck in 1951, photographed by Paulo Ribenboim after cycling the roughly thirty kilometres from Nancy to Pont-à-Mousson (Meurthe-et-Moselle).
The man who refused everything
The life of mathematician Alexandre Grothendieck was certainly no "long, quiet river" (see our special feature in Tangente 162, 2014). He was born in Berlin in 1928 to a Russian anarchist father, who later died after being deported, and a German journalist mother. He spent some time with her in an internment camp in France before they were separated so that he could attend school; they were not reunited until 1945. After studying mathematics in Montpellier (Hérault), completing a thesis in 1950 entitled Produits tensoriels topologiques et Espaces nucléaires, spending time with the Bourbaki group and holding university posts in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Chicago (United States) between 1953 and 1958, he settled at the Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHES), which soon moved to Bures-sur-Yvette in Essonne (1958–1970). There, his algebraic geometry seminar caused a sensation and contributed greatly to the institute's reputation.
