
The Grothendieck I Knew: Telling, Not Hiding, Not Judging [pdf] - chewxy
http://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201907/rnoti-p1069.pdf
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susam
I am reminded of a fascinating paragraph about Grothendieck from the book _The
Music of the Primes_ by Marcus du Sautoy. Quoting it from _Chapter 12: The
Missing Piece of the Jigsaw_ here:

But for Grothendieck this was not abstraction for abstraction's sake. In his
view this was a revolution that was necessitated by the questions that
mathematics was trying to answer. He wrote volume after volume describing this
new language. Grothendieck's vision was messianic, and he began to attract a
following of faithful young disciples. His output was huge, covering some ten
thousand pages. When a visitor complained at the poor state of the library at
the Institut, he replied, 'We don't read books here, we write them'.

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jesuslop
If you happen to read Spanish, professional philolospher Fernando Zalamea has
finally finished his book on Grothendiek planed as a guidebook for someone
overwhelmed by the huge extension of G's production. "A. Grothendieck, una
guía a la obra matemática y filosófica" (A. G., A guide to the mathematical
and philosophical works). Well researched if you ask me. Freely available.
Zalamea is a philosopher that category theorists would like.

[https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Alexander+Grothendieck](https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Alexander+Grothendieck),
at the end

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edflsafoiewq
Cartier's personal recollections of Grothendieck is also fascinating.

A country of which nothing is known but the name:
[http://xahlee.info/math/i/Alexander_Grothendieck_cartier.pdf](http://xahlee.info/math/i/Alexander_Grothendieck_cartier.pdf)

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pierre_d528

      > ... **Not Judging** ...
      > ...
      > Despite it all, I hope to have achieved a truthful text that illustrates the
      > **unclassifiable** person Grothendieck was.
      > ...
      > The quite unusual style of writing—with sentences, subsentences, and the
      > excessive use of cross references—intrigued me. One of my friends, a
      > professional psychoan-alyst, declared that **the author was paranoiac**.
    

Ignore this guy and just read Récolte & Semailles[1]

[1]: [https://www.quarante-
deux.org/archives/klein/prefaces/Romans...](https://www.quarante-
deux.org/archives/klein/prefaces/Romans_1965-1969/Recoltes_et_semailles.pdf)

~~~
ajudson
Do you know if there is any full English translation of this?

~~~
alderz
I don't know about a full translation, but some is translated and available
here:
[https://www.fermentmagazine.org/rands/recoltes1.html](https://www.fermentmagazine.org/rands/recoltes1.html)

And more texts are available here: [https://webusers.imj-
prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircl...](https://webusers.imj-
prg.fr/~leila.schneps/grothendieckcircle/biographic.php)

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andrewem
Perhaps someone here can expand the Wikipedia article on the author. It's
quite short:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Ribenboim](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Ribenboim)

