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Mathematics Great Alexander Grothendieck Dies At 86
An anonymous reader writes Alexander Grothendieck, one of the great eccentric geniuses of 20th century mathematics, has died in France at the age of 86. Grothendieck was the leading mind behind algebraic geometry. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966. He reached the very pinnacle of his profession before abandoning the discipline, taking up anti-war activism, retreating into the life of a recluse and refusing to share his research. He died on Thursday in a hospital in Saint-Girons in southwestern France.
The snippet above ("before abandoning the discipline, taking up anti-war activism") sounds as if he had switched from math to politics in 1970. Truth is, he was an anti-war activist all life long, i.e. against France's Algeria war, and he even gave lectures in Vietnam during wartime (1967). Some biographic texts about him are available at http://www.scharlau-online.de/... (AFAICT in german).
According to the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A..., he did later return to academia until 1988: "He retired from scientific life around 1970, after having discovered the partly military funding of IHÉS. He returned to academia a few years later as a professor at the University of Montpellier, where he stayed until his retirement in 1988. "
Well the best way to put it is the man gets 2 3 letter acronyms reserved for him among all mathematicians.
Éléments de géométrie algébrique (EGA) and Séminaire de géométrie algébrique (SGA).
Wikipedia has a nice list of other things with his name:
Ax-Grothendieck theorem
Birkhoff–Grothendieck theorem
Brieskorn–Grothendieck resolution
Grothendieck category
Grothendieck's connectedness theorem
Grothendieck connection
Grothendieck construction
Grothendieck duality
Grothendieck existence theorem
Grothendieck fibration
Grothendieck's Galois theory
Grothendieck group
Grothendieck inequality or Grothendieck constant
Grothendieck–Katz p-curvature conjecture
Grothendieck's monodromy theorem
Grothendieck's mysterious functor
Grothendieck–Ogg–Shafarevich formula
Grothendieck period conjecture
Grothendieck prime
Grothendieck's relative point of view
Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem
Grothendieck's Séminaire de géométrie algébrique
Grothendieck's six operators
Grothendieck space
Grothendieck spectral sequence
Grothendieck–Teichmüller theory
Grothendieck trace formula
Grothendieck topology
Grothendieck universe
Tarski–Grothendieck set theory
I'm not insane.
My mom had me tested.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.