All these lines, typed or handwritten—very often on the backs of other papers or old computer printouts—are frequently difficult to decipher. The papers bearing them were arranged by their author and carefully archived in boxes made to very precise dimensions.
They are currently divided between two collections. One is held at the Institut montpelliérain Alexandre-Grothendieck (Imag), which recently digitized eighteen thousand pages and made them available online. The other comprises roughly seventy thousand pages discovered in the mathematician's house after his death. It probably contains little mathematical material and is stored in a cellar in Paris.
The material carefully digitized by Imag offers a window into the brilliant mathematician's thinking through writings produced between 1949 and 1991. They are often annotated with personal remarks revealing their author's mistrust of the justice system or the scientific establishment. Alongside the archivists' cataloguing work, the involvement of mathematician Jean Malgoire of the Université de Montpellier was essential in identifying the main mathematical themes addressed, including "Crystals" between 1958 and 1971, "Theory of motives" from 1958 to 1973, "Elements of algebraic geometry" from 1960 to 1992, and "Stratified spaces" from 1981 to 1990.
