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.<p>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: <a href="https://web.math.princeton.edu/~naor/homepage%20files/cutnorm.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://web.math.princeton.edu/~naor/homepage%20files/cutnor...</a>)<p>Sad to hear of such a brilliant person passing (even if he does reinforce a rather negative stereotype of mathematicians).
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. <a href="http://www.grothendieckcircle.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.grothendieckcircle.org/</a><p>"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.”
<a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sensitivity-harmony-things" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sensitivity-harmony-thin...</a><p>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.<p><a href="http://www.ihes.fr/document?id=1723&id_attribute=48" rel="nofollow">http://www.ihes.fr/document?id=1723&id_attribute=48</a>
<a href="http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle/DieMutanten.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle...</a>
<a href="http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle/Clefsummary.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle...</a>
<a href="http://xahlee.info/math/i/Alexander_Grothendieck_cartier.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://xahlee.info/math/i/Alexander_Grothendieck_cartier.pdf</a>
Anyone know of a published version of Grothendieck's <i>Reapings and Sowings</i>? Mentioned a lot in pages about him, book references currently eluding my Google-fu.
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.<p><a href="http://inference-review.com/article/a-country-known-only-by-name" rel="nofollow">http://inference-review.com/article/a-country-known-only-by-...</a>
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: <a href="http://www.gofundme.com/7ldiwo" rel="nofollow">http://www.gofundme.com/7ldiwo</a><p>She already managed to translate a few chapters: <a href="http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle/Scharlau3.html" rel="nofollow">http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle...</a>
I find the wording in this article really odd. He was not an math enigma he was a mathematician; he solved enigmas.<p>>A vexing character himself, Mr. Grothendieck (pronounced GROAT-en-deek) turned away from mathematics at the height of his powers in the early 1970s<p>Math powers?
still his birthday on this math-geeks french website: <a href="http://www.les-mathematiques.net/" rel="nofollow">http://www.les-mathematiques.net/</a>