Alexander Grothendieck, Math Enigma, Dies at 86 | Hacker News Reader

Alexander Grothendieck, Math Enigma, Dies at 86

nytimes.com

177 pointskdavis23 comments

Oh man, I actually cited some of his work in one of my papers. There was a particular result buried in one of his papers from 1968 that was not well-understood by mathematicians for almost 20 years until it was resurrected in less-abstract language in 1986.

The particular result isn't his most famous, but it does underly a lot of modern research into approximate solutions of NP-hard problems. (See here: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~naor/homepage%20files/cutnor...)

Sad to hear of such a brilliant person passing (even if he does reinforce a rather negative stereotype of mathematicians).

> even if he does reinforce a rather negative stereotype of mathematicians).

is there some circmstance in which it wouldn't be sad to hear of that death of someone who "reinforce a rather negative stereotype of mathematicians"? That doesn't sound like a capital offense.

> is there some circmstance in which it wouldn't be sad to hear of that death of someone who "reinforce a rather negative stereotype of mathematicians"?

There was definitely some rejoicing after a maths professor at my university died. The most common succinct explanation of this was that he "represented everything wrong with mathematics as a discipline", and a large part of why that is bad is that it reinforced negative stereotypes. Not saying the rejoicing was justified or that the death of a human being isn't sad, but many did rejoice, for better or worse including me.

Not to say that Grothendieck's death was comparable. AFAIK he never sexually harassed anyone, or any of the other things said professor did.

As I was interested in Alexander's philosophical and religious thoughts I came across summaries of it at the "Grothendieck Circle" formed by some academics among them Pierre Lochack and Leila Schneps. http://www.grothendieckcircle.org/

"In 1990, he gave away or destroyed all his papers and disappeared into the Pyrenees Mountains. For some years, no mathematicians knew where he was. Pierre Lochak and Leila Schneps, two French algebraic geometers, heard from a former neighbor of Grothendieck that the “crazy mathematician” had been spotted in a nearby town. They tracked him down and found him living alone, doing organic farming. They maintained contact with him for several years, but now, Schneps says, “he’s not in a state to be visited. It’s not possible to not quarrel with him – or rather, for him not to quarrel with you.” She hesitates to call him crazy, though she admits that in a technical sense, that might be true. “His mental state is very, very special.” https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sensitivity-harmony-thin...

I was reminded of the philosophical work of Buckminster Fuller and Alexander's Flora/Lucifera janus figure reminds me of Carl Jung's Philemon figure. So I wonder why he lists Freud instead of Jung as 'mutant', also Marcel Légaut, Teilhard de Chardin and Rudolf Steiner are on that list.

http://www.ihes.fr/document?id=1723&id_attribute=48 http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle... http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle... http://xahlee.info/math/i/Alexander_Grothendieck_cartier.pdf

Does anyone know where can one find and read these?:

> began devoting himself obsessively to writing what he called his “meditations.”

Recoltes et Semailles (links posted below), Esquisse d'un Programme (a mathematical text), and possibly more.

Anyone know of a published version of Grothendieck's Reapings and Sowings? Mentioned a lot in pages about him, book references currently eluding my Google-fu.

You may not have much luck... Grothendieck was notoriously private. IIRC, he officially withdrew every peer-reviewed mathematical manuscript during the late 80s. There are mimeographed copies floating through the halls of math departments in France, but I've never actually seen much of his work.

There's surely going to be a scramble over his estate.

Exactly, a lot of his work from the 80s ended up in a cupboard from the math department of Montpellier and was almost sent to trash during relocation to new buildings.

Here it is, in French, I don't think an English translation of the whole thing exists: http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle...

Thanks, I'll keep looking for some of it in English as my French is basic-to-nonexistant.

Moreover I find his writing style (having just read few paragraphs of this book) very advanced even although I'm French.

Some of it is here: http://www.fermentmagazine.org/rands/intro1.html

Edit: Sorry, I thought for some reason that you were looking for an English version. It hasn't been published, that I know of.

There is an essay (in English and French) published last month on Grothendieck's life and work by Pierre Cartier who was a member of Bourbaki and a friend and colleague of Grothendieck's.

http://inference-review.com/article/a-country-known-only-by-...

A friend of my friend it translating biography of Grothendieck from French to English. If you want to support her effort, here is the crowdfunding site: http://www.gofundme.com/7ldiwo

She already managed to translate a few chapters: http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle...

I find the wording in this article really odd. He was not an math enigma he was a mathematician; he solved enigmas.

>A vexing character himself, Mr. Grothendieck (pronounced GROAT-en-deek) turned away from mathematics at the height of his powers in the early 1970s

Math powers?

Yes, math powers.

It's a commonly used expression in the math community ("powerful mathematician"). If you ever meet a mathematician as absurdly good as Grothendieck was, you'll get the meaning ( his methods are sometimes called "black magic").

still his birthday on this math-geeks french website: http://www.les-mathematiques.net/

duplicated here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8604814

I appreciate the link, and that article has much good discussion. I would not exactly call it a "duplicate", though: it is in French and this article is in English. I think both threads are valuable.

Normally we would treat these as duplicates, but Grothendieck is exceptional.

(Actually, what we normally would have done is disallow the French-language article—not because the French language isn't magnificent, but because HN is an English-language site. But Grothendieck is exceptional, and it was likely going to take a day for a high-quality English piece to appear.)

Can't argue that he is exceptional, so I stand corrected :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com