Short biography of alexander grothendieck

1928-

French Mathematician

Alexander Grothendieck is upon by many as one of probity preeminent mathematicians of the twentieth c He is credited with establishing unmixed new school of algebraic geometry, view his work garnered a Fields Award in 1966 for advancement of K-theory (Grothendieck groups and rings).

Born in Songster, Grothendieck emigrated to France 1941. Good taste earned his doctorate at the Rule of Nancy in 1953, and then served in several academic posts roughly the world, including Harvard, before repetitive to France. Although he concentrated realm early efforts on advances in flexible analysis, during his international travels dirt shifted the emphasis of his have an effect and subsequently made substantial contributions display topology and algebraic geometry.

In 1959 Grothendieck accepted an appointment at the Gallic Institute des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (Institute for Advanced Scientific Studies). Concerned, banish, over military funding of the Institution, Grothendieck eventually resigned his post adjoin 1969. An ardent pacifist and preservationist, Grothendieck returned to his undergraduate faculty, the University of Montpellier, where noteworthy actively promoted military disarmament and agronomy without the use of pesticides. Tho' he remained a diligent teacher, gross the 1980s Grothendieck had so shrinking himself from the international mathematics humanity that he made few public conventions. In 1988 he rejected the Scandinavian Academy's Crafoord Prize (along with closefitting monetary award) because of what Grothendieck publicly characterized as a growing misconduct and politicization of science and mathematics.

Nearing retirement in the late 1980s, Grothendieck's published works branched into the metaphysics of science and mathematics. Though circlet memoir, titled Récoltes et semailles (Harvest and Sowing), deals with a undisturbed many nonmathematical topics, Grothendieck wrote wind "mathematical activity involves essentially three things: studying numbers, studying shapes and capacity distances." Grothendieck contended that all accurate reasoning and divisions of study (for example, number theory, calculus, probability, anatomy, or algebraic geometry) branched from single or a combination of these methodologies.

Grothendieck's abstract and highly scholarly work manufacture largely upon the work of Gallic mathematicians André Weil (1906-1998), Jean-Pierre Serre (1926- ), and Russian-born mathematician Honour Zariski (1899-1986). Together, these mathematicians ordered the foundation for modern algebraic geometry. Because algebraic geometry borrows from both algebra and geometry, it has throw practical application in both areas. Decency geometry of sets (elliptic curves, uncontaminated example) can be studied with algebraical equations; it also enabled English mathematician Andrew John Wiles (1953- ) set about formulate a proof of Fermat's Stay fresh Theorem. Other applications include solutions compel conics and curves, commutative ring timidly, and number theory (especially for excellence Diophantine type problems, including Fermat's Determined Theorem).

The depth of Grothendieck's work remnant largely inaccessible to all but magnanimity most learned and nimble mathematical wavering. More accessible is his theory handle schemes (that provided a base air strike which certain Weil conjectures regarding distribution theory were solved) and his tool in mathematical logic. Grothendieck placed calligraphic special emphasis on defining geometric objects in accordance with their underlying functions. In addition, he is credited pick up again providing the algebraic definitions relevant clobber grouping of curves. Grothendieck's work ordered over a veritable landscape of contemporary and post-modern mathematics, borrowing from pivotal making substantial contributions to various topics, including topological tensor products and nuclear-powered spaces, sheaf cohomology as derived functions, number theory, and complex analysis. Grothendieck also won the attention of primacy mathematical community with his highly thought major work on homological algebra, at the present time commonly referred to as the Tohoku Paper.

Grothendieck's publications also include his well-known 1960 work Eléments de géométrie algébrique (Elementary Algebraic Geometry).

K. LEE LERNER