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(See old discussion at Talk:Alexander_Grothendieck/Major_topics)
Well, let's write now all these articles about his (and other people's) work :)
Does he spell his name "Alexandre" instead of "Alexander"? In the letter circulating around the French mathematical community this last month, he signs his name "Alexandre". http://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/grothendiecks-letter/
Thank you, Charles Matthews for your great article and comments. Still, I think claiming that Grothendieck's work is of axiomatic kind is precise only when referring to certain period. There is nothing about axioms is Esquisse. It's normal that style changes with time and I think it would be right if you corected this.
I can't correct this because there is some error with this sentence. What means 'the mathematics'? Did you mean 'his mathematics of that period' which is OK for me or 'his mathematics' (which I consider as factual error) -- Ilya 18:13, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It's a fair comment: it is what Jean Dieudonné always said about him, but I know that it isn't really the whole story. So I have made some changes.
Charles Matthews 19:11, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
In what sense is Grothendieck's work "scarcely credible"? This needs some elaboration and appears to be personal opinion. - Gauge 04:44, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Permanently, as far as I know. So changing 'was' to 'is' breaks the line of thought. Charles Matthews 08:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Orz, in his last edit, deleted some content about Grothendieck's disappareance and added a comment saying he is said to have died in 1993. I think we would definitely require a citation for this kind of comment. Grothendieck legally transferred rights over his papers to Malgoire in 1995 and other mathematicians say they spoke to him in the mid 1990s (see AMS Notices articles cited). -- C S (Talk) 10:17, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I stubled upon an interesting letter [1], which charts some of grothendieck retreat from mathematics. Not sure if its worth including. -- Salix alba ( talk) 18:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Les Annettes July 8, 1987.
Dear Piotr Blass,
Thanks for your letter and MS. I am not going even to glance through the manuscript, as I have completely given up mathematics and mathematical involvements. If you complete your book, you may mention on the cover that it is based on my EGA IV (sic) notes, but you are to be the author and find your own title.
I have a foreboding that we'll contact again before very long, but in relation to more inspiring tasks and vistas than mathematical ones.
With my very best wishes
Alexander Grothendieck
jinfo [2] gives the following information, from which it is clear that his father was Jewish and that the most reliable source, Grothendieck's friend Pierre Cartier, says that his mother was Jewish too. Note that even if his mother was not Jewish, he should be placed in the category Jewish mathematicians, as this includes people of Jewish descent.
-- Brownlee 16:17, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
The point is that Jinfo regards Cartier as the most reliable source. It violates WP:NOR to assert that the Grothendieck Circle is more reliable without providing a source that says so.-- Newport 19:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Note 2 on Grothendieck's page still marks the origin of his mother as "uncertain". In view of the new book by Winfried Scharlau, this needs to be removed. The book contains detailed information on Hanka as well as on his family. Her ancestery is not uncertain by any means. And there are no Jewish parents.
http://www.scharlau-online.de/DOKS/Anarchist.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.149.12.163 ( talk) 11:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Just in case somebody has not noticed: the user Newport was banned a long time ago for his infractions against Wikipedia rules. Feketekave ( talk) 14:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Jinfo lists several sources and concludes that Grothendieck's friend is the most reliable. Jinfo thus asserts that Grothendieck is Jewish. It is original research to assert that another source is more reliable than Grothendieck's friend without a source to verify this.-- Brownlee 14:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
What Lenthe thinks is original research. Wikipedia should just quote what sources say.-- Brownlee 15:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Most editors who have looked at Jinfo consider it reliable. In any case, for Grothendieck it quotes three sources, so we can rely on those.
The edit by User:128.148.123.7 removing a source is not acceptable. You have to add sources, to give a proper survey of the evidence. Charles Matthews 16:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I haven't yet looked deeply into this, but the German Wikipedia version is interesting, and the Scharlau material it links to. Charles Matthews 16:22, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
It seems this issue is being forced on this page. I find it distasteful, but we have rules for dealing with contentious matters. It is common ground that his father was a Russian or Ukrainian Jew. Apart from that, what do we have to go on? I have never heard that he was religious in any way.
I suppose the point should be made that he may well have been stateless; the French Wikipedia says so, and I heard this long ago also. We say he is a French mathematician and a German mathematician, even so. Therefore it might be considered that his paternal Jewish background is of at least as important a status. This is something to discuss.
Charles Matthews 15:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Just so everyone here realizes, a person can be referred to as Jewish or half Jewish on Wikipedia only if a reputable source refers to them as that (same thing for anything else, athiest, Irish-American, Welsh, etc.). Regardless of their mother's, father's, whatever's background. You may not list a person with a Jewish mother as "Jewish" unless you have a source that explicitly calls that person "Jewish" themselves and likewise a person with a Jewish father or even paternal grandfather will absolutely be listed as Jewish if a reliable source refers to them that way. Don't bring up "Who is a Jew", because, aside from the fact that you may not mix-and-match definitions to decide who is a what (see the WP:NOR example of deciding who is or is not a plagiarist), the page presents several ways in which a person can be "Jewish", of which Charles Matthews has picked one, which he may not do. This is not up for discussion, negotiation - Wikipedia editors simply can not decide who is Jewish based on their favorite definition of the term (nor may they decide who is, again, Italian-American, etc.). This is the "standard" used for every and any Wikipedia article and it is the standard used for every X-American or X-whatever list. Now, regardless of the background of either his father or mother, the questions here seem to be A. Since JInfo refers to Grodenchick as Jewish, is JInfo a reliable soure? What is their source? Or B. Is there any other source out there that refers to him as Jewish? Mad Jack 17:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
i am going to add to the section "EGA and SGA" something about FGA without which, i think, something serious will be missing in this article. marhahs 24sep2006.
I don't think people are supposed to be in both the Living People and Disappeared people categories. If someone has really disappeared, we can't be sure if he's still alive. Which is more appropriate?-- Runcorn 10:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
What is the Dolbeault-Grothendieck lemma? DFH 20:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
There are several famous photographs of Grothendieck available on the web, but I have not been able to find any information about their copyright status. It would be nice to be able to upload one or more of them for use in this article. File:Grothendieck.jpg was deleted 22/4/2007 under CSD I4 (no copyright information). Geometry guy 16:30, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I have to admit I don't know what the legal status of the photographs on the Grothendieck circle site are. I found them in various places, some were already on the web, others in private photo albums belonging to friends and family members of the Grothendieck family. Let me be clear, I didn't ask for anyone's permission to put them there, for all I know I behaved illegally, but nobody has protested so far, although Grothendieck's ex-wife did make a remark that maybe I shouldn't do that, but she didn't ask me to take them off. You are welcome to use them if you wish, under these circumstances. Best Leila Schneps
By chance, I discovered that the Montreal photo was taken by Konrad Jacobs, and so the copyright is held by Oberwolfach. I've uploaded it with a fair use rationale. Geometry guy 17:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I've done that now: it seems my fair use rationale is sufficiently robust. Lets hope! I guess I should probably remove the experimental persondata page, although I am also tempted to roll it out more widely, since it seems to work quite well. Any comments here? Geometry guy 23:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Is this another case of a brilliant person who produced valuable work and then had a mental breakdown? After such an irreversible brain change, such people are usually no longer able to produce anything of general value. Lestrade ( talk) 01:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Lestrade
Not really. It only concerns a Wikipedia article about an important mathematician whose life interests changed fundamentally and radically. Small potatoes. Lestrade ( talk) 01:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Lestrade
I was wondering if his mental alteration resulted in his inability to produce the kind of work that he had previously produced. Did he experience a qualitative change? Is he the same mathematician that he was previously? Is his mind now so altered that it is impossible for him to think topologically? Is his current long autobiographical writing evidence of a total, absolute, complete change in his mind? Is this similar to Grigory Perelman's situation? Lestrade ( talk) 02:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Lestrade
Any citations on this? I'm a mathematician and never heard of him, until recently. Looks like the article is written from category theorists' POV, who assume their theory is the most important thing in mathematics, when it clearly isn't. Grue 04:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Grue, why don't you tell us who you consider big cheeses in central areas of mathematics, and we'll see if we can find praise from them. Could be a fun game. John Z ( talk) 01:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm trying to remember who called him the "pope of mathematics" in the 60's Dieudonné?, Cartier? Concerning the article, perhaps Grothendieck's imho accurate evaluation in Recoltes that motifs are his deepest work, while the theory of topoi is the one of broadest importance is worth mentioning. John Z ( talk)
I, personally, think really well of Grothendieck; that being said, i would posit that "greatest" / "worst" / "mediocre" / etc., when it comes to character and achievement, can never find a universally acceptable metric and is therefore a [non-neutral] POV. Grothendieck has achieved a lot; this should be documented in the article and from that the individual reader can draw their own conclusion as to his greatness, or lack of it. Quaeler ( talk) 06:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I note that Britannica calls Grothendieck "one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century". You know, this whole discussion reminds me of the time a physicist complained that calling David Hilbert "one of the most influential" was unsubstantiated POV. He even said he had asked some mathematician friends and they had never heard of the guy. [4] He later retracted his comments. -- C S ( talk) 17:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I am still amazed that there is any sort of discussion on this matter. I have met people who don't like some of the stylistic effects of Grothendieck's work, but I have never met anybody who takes issue with his occupying a place in the mathematical community of the second half of the twentieth century roughly comparable to that of Hilbert's at the beginning of the century. (Hilbert probably worked in more areas, but he lived at an earlier time.) Feketekave ( talk) 14:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I am not going to restore the "misleading wikilink" that another editor removed, because I do not want to get into a pointless edit war, but I want to explain why it was not misleading and why removing it may not have been a good idea. As the entry itself points out, Grothendieck is a leftist, and he was certainly familiar with the Long March. His title La Longue Marche à travers la théorie de Galois is a clear allusion to that. The reason I added the link was to explain why I changed the previous (bad) translation "The Long Walk," and now that the link isn't there I suspect someone who doesn't understand the allusion will think "Why 'long march'? Marche can be translated 'walk' or 'journey' or 'path'" -- and the entry will be graced with another mistranslation. Languagehat ( talk) 16:54, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
It seems slightly comical to give great emphasis to Grothendieck's supposed birth name - or, rather, as the source puts it, the name under which he was initially recorded. This name - Alexander Raddatz - is little more than a legal accident: Grothendieck was born to Hanna Grothendieck while she was still legally married to a Mr. Raddatz. Very soon after his birth - here again I am following the source cited in the first two lines of this article - Mr. Raddatz took the question of Alexander G.'s paternity to court; Alexander Schapiro/Tanaroff acknowledged his paternity. Presumably Alexander G.'s automatically took his mother's name, though somebody with more legal expertise on matters of paternity in the Weimar republic could enlighten us. Feketekave ( talk) 00:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay, guys ( User:Feketekave and unnamed IP), you can stop now. Please have your argument here about whether Grothendieck was French or German or both, not in the edit comments. Ryan Reich ( talk) 16:02, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
I just read this. The unnamed IP has been shadowing my edits on several articles; he has also made provably false claims about my edits repeatedly. I was advised by an administrator to leave him a warning that he or she has not heeded (and may not have got, since his or her IP address keeps shifting; all we know from now is that it is a Deutsche Telekom user).
I have absolutely no interest in getting into an ethnic edit war; my point is precisely that a classification by descent is misleading and unnecessary, besides being vaguely Naziesque. One can give all the importance one wants to Grothendieck's background in Germany; to make him into a Volksdeutscher by descent is offensive. I do not see any tags classifying him by any other sort of descent, and neither do I mean to introduce any. Feketekave ( talk) 04:36, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
There is an obvious argument that G. is of German descent, since his mother was undeniably German, and of course he was born in Berlin. It is also claimed that he never had French citizenship, so is not French, though of course he lived and worked all his life in France so is a French mathematician at the least by acclamation. For these reasons, he is in Category:People from Berlin and Category:French mathematicians; it is both redundant and misleading to put him in an "intersection category" since although at first glance he belongs to both parts, he is also said to be stateless (he used to be in Category:Stateless persons, but I don't know what happened to it). A more specific category is more useful than a more general one, since it provides arguments for its own inclusion as well as making more helpful navigational distinctions.
I don't wish to make generalizations about the habits of Wikipedia users, but I think much more energy has gone into using this category as a proxy for personal (or possibly nationalist) opinions than is justified by the possibility of anyone ever finding this article in a category as general as "X people of Y descent". A lot of big categories must be pretty useless as navigational aids unless you actually know what you are looking for, which defeats the purpose; it is really not appropriate to use inclusion in a category to claim the subject for one or another purpose. In this case, much more is known about G. than simply that he is "French" and some anscestor was German, and so rather than put him in the simplistic classification, we have him in the nuanced ones, which should satisfy the IP editor unless the words themselves matter to him. And that is not right. Ryan Reich ( talk) 14:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
"After the war, the young Grothendieck studied mathematics in France, initially at the University of Montpellier. He had decided to become a math teacher because he had been told that mathematical research had been completed early in the 20th century and there were no more open problems.[10] However, his talent was noticed, and he was encouraged to go to Paris in 1948."
I don't see where, in the article by Allyn Jackson or in the original text of Récoltes et Semailles, it says that he decided to become a math teacher. Certainly there is this quotation that Lebesgue had developed his theory of integration and thereby "completed" mathematical research, but I don't see anything about Grothendieck thus deciding to teach. Am I missing something obvious here? 99.231.110.182 ( talk) 11:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
The article mentions that there is a translation into English underway. I wanted to let a friend of mine read a portion of it, so I would not mind translating the part I need. Is there a website I can submit my translation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by --UVa IP address-- ( talk • contribs) 00:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
In the "Retirement into reclusion" section, the following statement is made: "It's worth noticing that the letter may be read as a piece of recursive humor…." This is a personal opinion, not an objective fact. Lestrade ( talk) 21:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)Lestrade
Hi, the link to doctoral student Jean Giraud is wrong. It leads to the comic book writer, not the mathematician. I couldn't figure how to edit, because the little edit link on the right-top of the page didn't appear to me. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.171.187.191 ( talk) 03:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
Curious that he is legally a stateless person. Though the infobox states this, no information on how this came to pass is in the article. I suggest this is included in the appropriate part of the biography. LukeSurl t c 21:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
He was long stateless due to his not having asked for French citizenship, to which he was presumably entitled (but didn't automatically possess, since he wasn't born in France). I have just come across a source that states that he did finally apply for (and, it is implied, of course got) French citizenship in 1971, once he became too old to be conscripted. See [ [6]]: "... et ne demandera sa naturalisation qu’en 1971, une fois certain qu’on ne lui demandera plus de faire son service militaire.". The page should now be edited accordingly, though it would be best to get a source that explicitly says that he currently holds French citizenship. Feketekave ( talk) 00:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Maybe it should be mentioned somewhere that Grothendieck had 3 children. Serge and Johanna and ??. It is written in the NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 51, NUMBER 10... -- helohe (talk) 23:57, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Large swathes of this article make grand but esoteric claims without sources. The need for sourcing is straight forward, but the article can't be read by anyone without a degree in mathematics, unless constant use of links is used to discovery the meaning of terms not defined in the text. For example, I have a bachelor's degree in biology and took every course upto but not including linear algebra, but "Grothendieck's early mathematical work was in functional analysis." Is meaningless. This can easily be fixed by an expert adding brief explanations along the lines of: "Grothendieck's early mathematical work was in functional analysis, the study of how X affects Y in the context of Z". This allows the reader to read the article without having to follow four score links to understand it. μηδείς ( talk) 19:20, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
Medeis. The part of the article that you see as jargon soup is the two-levels dumbed-down simplified explanation of Grothendieck's work, which to understand properly requires years of graduate study. It has at least been simplified to a level where someone with an advanced mathematics education should be able recognize the topics and follow the links for more information. To simplify it further we would have to say "he did advanced mathematics" and leave it at that. Maybe you want simple:Alexander Grothendieck. — David Eppstein ( talk) 02:41, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
Medeis writes at ITN discussion: "At this point you are just outright lying, no one has said anything about making the article 'accessible to someone with zero mathematical knowledge', I have mentioned a familiarity with calculus on the article's talk page..." I think this points to Medeis's primary misapprehension, that some familiarity with calculus is somehow going to be helpful here (he even mentions trigonometry and linear algebra). No, the mathematics involved is incredibly advanced. It is often not even encountered in graduate school. Even most mathematicians with PhDs lack the required background knowledge (myself included for many of his contributions). Some individuals have built their careers, even won Fields medals, by just understanding a small part of Grothendieck's work. Mentioning calculus as though it were a prerequisite is, to make a biological analogy, like someone saying "I saw a bird once. So please explain the biochemistry of bird behavior." When I point out that the person would need to know some biology, he says "But you're lying. I just told you that I saw a bird once." He then goes on in that same discussion to call mathematics contributors "incompetent". Well, yes, insofar as we are not able to convey advanced mathematics in a few pithy phrases, we are incompetent. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:53, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
I think μηδείς's points are quite good. This is not an article about mathematics, it's an article about a mathematician; extreme simplifications of his mathematics are compeltely appropriate here. μηδείς even offered a concrete example: "[Riemann-Roch] allows complex topologies to be dealt with algebraically," and I this sort of comment would indeed make the sentence much more understandable to a layperson. Unfortunately so far none of the (other) mathematicians here seem to have engaged with this particular suggestion. To take another example: the sentence "Grothendieck's emphasis on the role of universal properties brought category theory into the mainstream as an organizing principle" is not very helpful to anyone who doesn't know what it means for there to be an "organizing principle" of mathematics; I think it would be very reasonable to expand this comment out somewhat to say something about what sorts of objects to treat as fundamental when doing mathematics (or whatever; I have thought about this for all of 30 seconds), and to assess the actual significance for practicing mathematicians of this viewpoint (which, at least in some fields, seems to be substantial). Obviously not every single sentence requires this sort of addition, but sprinkling in a few of them among the fields of jargon would greatly improve the article. --
JBL (
talk) 23:33, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
I have had my edits reverted, and was referred here. Procedurally that is OK; but the revert was not so good, in the sense that I removed material that was in fact meaningless. The expository problem with Grothendieck is major (even for mathematicians talking to other mathematicians). Nothing can be done about it if some abstraction is not permitted. "Organizing principle" should be OK. It is abstract, but it is perfectly correct as a description of what is going on. This is an occasion for paraphrase using "in other words". More colloquially, one would say that Grothendieck's "big picture" was on a broader canvas than others had used.
The GRR theorem does not relate "topological properties of complex algebraic curves to their algebraic structure". That is quite wrong, and should not have been put back into the article. What Riemann and Roch did related to curves, which were complex. What Hirzebruch did related to complex varieties of higher dimension. What Grothendieck did related to mappings from one variety to another, over any field, not just the complex numbers. So the old version is factually simply incorrect.
There is actually a structural problem. The "Influence" section is placed where a more introductory exposition might be, in an "inverted pyramid" conception. Logically, how can one talk about the influence of Theorem A and its content at the same time? In Grothendieck's case the style of proof may be as influential as the content, also.
I suggest the "influence" section be moved down. I have just checked that "influence of Grothendieck" has a decent number of hits in Google Books; so the whole thing can be reconstructed with citations of what people in the field say the influence has been, which is how it should be. That is a way to deal with one of the problems. The expository problem as such should be recognised, but it is a different issue.
By the way, the "use of links is used to discover the meaning of terms not defined in the text" is certainly inevitable. Charles Matthews ( talk) 06:24, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
I've moved the "Influence" down, divided it up, and add some fresh references. The old structure of trying to have it as both an exposition, and an account of Grothendieck's influence, clearly wasn't working. The lead section can have some broad-brush comments: that is what it is there for, after all. The choice of language really has to be postponed until the structure has been improved. Charles Matthews ( talk) 13:47, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
See http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/mumford/blog/2014/Grothendieck.html for an obituary by David Mumford and John Tate that was intended to be published in Nature as an introduction to Grothendieck's work that could be readable to a non-specialist but educated audience. Unfortunately it was not published because the editors were afraid of even that much math appearing in their journal, but I think we can still use it as a source under the established expert clause of WP:SPS. — David Eppstein ( talk) 18:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Initially the article says he was born in Berlin, later ist says he was born in Weimar. The German WP says he was born in Berlin. Possibly there is a midunderstanding arising from: he was born in Berlin during the Weimar republic. Ontologix ( talk) 02:07, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
In 39 A. G. and his mother went to France and lived in various camps. the article states.
!!!
What about this: During the war Soljenitzyne went to Siberia and lived in various camps.
No. Alexandre Grothendieck and his mother were imprisoned in the camp of Rieucros. With a minimum of food, clothing and heat. But because they were arians they were not send to an extermination camp, as the father.
My english is too poor, but I hope that somebody will correct the article. It is true that after Rieucros they came under a more human internment system. Mio Nielsen, France -- 86.221.20.63 ( talk) 14:36, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you Nishidani. I am fully satisfied. We have in France some media interest for Grothendieck at this moment, due to a newly published book about him. The camp of Rieucros has an internet site today and I found a particular point : The head of the camp recommended, in a letter to his superiors, that the children should be obliged to go to school for a special reason: They should be protected from the harmful influence of their mothers! Mothers like Ida Mett and Hanka Grothendieck were highly cultivated persons writing several languages including french which was not their native language. I have a letter from H. Grothendieck send from the camp. Mio Nielsen-- 86.221.20.63 ( talk) 09:01, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Got it. Excuse me. M N-- 86.221.20.9 ( talk) 11:34, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
This fine man may own the record for having the most minutes of YouTube devoted to showing the back of his head as he writes in chalk on a green "blackboard."
Clearly he was a fine mind. Isn't it a pity that our technology couldn't have found a better way of teaching his ideas to the world?
David Lloyd-Jones ( talk) 18:31, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
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I am a bit startled to see that title conferred on Grothendieck based on a single reference. Surely von Neumann, Hilbert and Poincare at the very least would be worthy competitors for the same moniker? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.247.91.225 ( talk) 23:23, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
Tommster1 ( talk) 23:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
IN the article's early section 1.2 'World War 2', the following occurs:
"He and his mother were then interned in various camps from 1940 to 1942 as "undesirable dangerous foreigners".[20] The first was the Rieucros Camp, 'where his mother contracted the tuberculosis' which eventually caused her death..."
Later on, in section 1.10 'Family', regarding his mother, we see:
"... she died in 1957 from the tuberculosis that she contracted in camps for displaced persons"
Concentration camps for undesirable dangerous foreigners (1940-42) are not the same as camps for displaced persons, which latter occurred after V.E., not during the European theater war.
I do not know which account , if either, is true. They are contradictory though, so at least one is false.
Cheerio :-)
Grothendieck was born in Berlin to a German mother. As son of a German, he was German at birth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LMSchmitt ( talk • contribs) 00:42, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
This article says that AG was born in Berlin and further down in Weimar. Which is it.? LMSchmitt 19:54, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
(See old discussion at Talk:Alexander_Grothendieck/Major_topics)
Well, let's write now all these articles about his (and other people's) work :)
Does he spell his name "Alexandre" instead of "Alexander"? In the letter circulating around the French mathematical community this last month, he signs his name "Alexandre". http://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/grothendiecks-letter/
Thank you, Charles Matthews for your great article and comments. Still, I think claiming that Grothendieck's work is of axiomatic kind is precise only when referring to certain period. There is nothing about axioms is Esquisse. It's normal that style changes with time and I think it would be right if you corected this.
I can't correct this because there is some error with this sentence. What means 'the mathematics'? Did you mean 'his mathematics of that period' which is OK for me or 'his mathematics' (which I consider as factual error) -- Ilya 18:13, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It's a fair comment: it is what Jean Dieudonné always said about him, but I know that it isn't really the whole story. So I have made some changes.
Charles Matthews 19:11, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
In what sense is Grothendieck's work "scarcely credible"? This needs some elaboration and appears to be personal opinion. - Gauge 04:44, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Permanently, as far as I know. So changing 'was' to 'is' breaks the line of thought. Charles Matthews 08:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Orz, in his last edit, deleted some content about Grothendieck's disappareance and added a comment saying he is said to have died in 1993. I think we would definitely require a citation for this kind of comment. Grothendieck legally transferred rights over his papers to Malgoire in 1995 and other mathematicians say they spoke to him in the mid 1990s (see AMS Notices articles cited). -- C S (Talk) 10:17, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I stubled upon an interesting letter [1], which charts some of grothendieck retreat from mathematics. Not sure if its worth including. -- Salix alba ( talk) 18:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Les Annettes July 8, 1987.
Dear Piotr Blass,
Thanks for your letter and MS. I am not going even to glance through the manuscript, as I have completely given up mathematics and mathematical involvements. If you complete your book, you may mention on the cover that it is based on my EGA IV (sic) notes, but you are to be the author and find your own title.
I have a foreboding that we'll contact again before very long, but in relation to more inspiring tasks and vistas than mathematical ones.
With my very best wishes
Alexander Grothendieck
jinfo [2] gives the following information, from which it is clear that his father was Jewish and that the most reliable source, Grothendieck's friend Pierre Cartier, says that his mother was Jewish too. Note that even if his mother was not Jewish, he should be placed in the category Jewish mathematicians, as this includes people of Jewish descent.
-- Brownlee 16:17, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
The point is that Jinfo regards Cartier as the most reliable source. It violates WP:NOR to assert that the Grothendieck Circle is more reliable without providing a source that says so.-- Newport 19:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Note 2 on Grothendieck's page still marks the origin of his mother as "uncertain". In view of the new book by Winfried Scharlau, this needs to be removed. The book contains detailed information on Hanka as well as on his family. Her ancestery is not uncertain by any means. And there are no Jewish parents.
http://www.scharlau-online.de/DOKS/Anarchist.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.149.12.163 ( talk) 11:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Just in case somebody has not noticed: the user Newport was banned a long time ago for his infractions against Wikipedia rules. Feketekave ( talk) 14:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Jinfo lists several sources and concludes that Grothendieck's friend is the most reliable. Jinfo thus asserts that Grothendieck is Jewish. It is original research to assert that another source is more reliable than Grothendieck's friend without a source to verify this.-- Brownlee 14:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
What Lenthe thinks is original research. Wikipedia should just quote what sources say.-- Brownlee 15:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Most editors who have looked at Jinfo consider it reliable. In any case, for Grothendieck it quotes three sources, so we can rely on those.
The edit by User:128.148.123.7 removing a source is not acceptable. You have to add sources, to give a proper survey of the evidence. Charles Matthews 16:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I haven't yet looked deeply into this, but the German Wikipedia version is interesting, and the Scharlau material it links to. Charles Matthews 16:22, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
It seems this issue is being forced on this page. I find it distasteful, but we have rules for dealing with contentious matters. It is common ground that his father was a Russian or Ukrainian Jew. Apart from that, what do we have to go on? I have never heard that he was religious in any way.
I suppose the point should be made that he may well have been stateless; the French Wikipedia says so, and I heard this long ago also. We say he is a French mathematician and a German mathematician, even so. Therefore it might be considered that his paternal Jewish background is of at least as important a status. This is something to discuss.
Charles Matthews 15:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Just so everyone here realizes, a person can be referred to as Jewish or half Jewish on Wikipedia only if a reputable source refers to them as that (same thing for anything else, athiest, Irish-American, Welsh, etc.). Regardless of their mother's, father's, whatever's background. You may not list a person with a Jewish mother as "Jewish" unless you have a source that explicitly calls that person "Jewish" themselves and likewise a person with a Jewish father or even paternal grandfather will absolutely be listed as Jewish if a reliable source refers to them that way. Don't bring up "Who is a Jew", because, aside from the fact that you may not mix-and-match definitions to decide who is a what (see the WP:NOR example of deciding who is or is not a plagiarist), the page presents several ways in which a person can be "Jewish", of which Charles Matthews has picked one, which he may not do. This is not up for discussion, negotiation - Wikipedia editors simply can not decide who is Jewish based on their favorite definition of the term (nor may they decide who is, again, Italian-American, etc.). This is the "standard" used for every and any Wikipedia article and it is the standard used for every X-American or X-whatever list. Now, regardless of the background of either his father or mother, the questions here seem to be A. Since JInfo refers to Grodenchick as Jewish, is JInfo a reliable soure? What is their source? Or B. Is there any other source out there that refers to him as Jewish? Mad Jack 17:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
i am going to add to the section "EGA and SGA" something about FGA without which, i think, something serious will be missing in this article. marhahs 24sep2006.
I don't think people are supposed to be in both the Living People and Disappeared people categories. If someone has really disappeared, we can't be sure if he's still alive. Which is more appropriate?-- Runcorn 10:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
What is the Dolbeault-Grothendieck lemma? DFH 20:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
There are several famous photographs of Grothendieck available on the web, but I have not been able to find any information about their copyright status. It would be nice to be able to upload one or more of them for use in this article. File:Grothendieck.jpg was deleted 22/4/2007 under CSD I4 (no copyright information). Geometry guy 16:30, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I have to admit I don't know what the legal status of the photographs on the Grothendieck circle site are. I found them in various places, some were already on the web, others in private photo albums belonging to friends and family members of the Grothendieck family. Let me be clear, I didn't ask for anyone's permission to put them there, for all I know I behaved illegally, but nobody has protested so far, although Grothendieck's ex-wife did make a remark that maybe I shouldn't do that, but she didn't ask me to take them off. You are welcome to use them if you wish, under these circumstances. Best Leila Schneps
By chance, I discovered that the Montreal photo was taken by Konrad Jacobs, and so the copyright is held by Oberwolfach. I've uploaded it with a fair use rationale. Geometry guy 17:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I've done that now: it seems my fair use rationale is sufficiently robust. Lets hope! I guess I should probably remove the experimental persondata page, although I am also tempted to roll it out more widely, since it seems to work quite well. Any comments here? Geometry guy 23:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Is this another case of a brilliant person who produced valuable work and then had a mental breakdown? After such an irreversible brain change, such people are usually no longer able to produce anything of general value. Lestrade ( talk) 01:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Lestrade
Not really. It only concerns a Wikipedia article about an important mathematician whose life interests changed fundamentally and radically. Small potatoes. Lestrade ( talk) 01:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Lestrade
I was wondering if his mental alteration resulted in his inability to produce the kind of work that he had previously produced. Did he experience a qualitative change? Is he the same mathematician that he was previously? Is his mind now so altered that it is impossible for him to think topologically? Is his current long autobiographical writing evidence of a total, absolute, complete change in his mind? Is this similar to Grigory Perelman's situation? Lestrade ( talk) 02:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Lestrade
Any citations on this? I'm a mathematician and never heard of him, until recently. Looks like the article is written from category theorists' POV, who assume their theory is the most important thing in mathematics, when it clearly isn't. Grue 04:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Grue, why don't you tell us who you consider big cheeses in central areas of mathematics, and we'll see if we can find praise from them. Could be a fun game. John Z ( talk) 01:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm trying to remember who called him the "pope of mathematics" in the 60's Dieudonné?, Cartier? Concerning the article, perhaps Grothendieck's imho accurate evaluation in Recoltes that motifs are his deepest work, while the theory of topoi is the one of broadest importance is worth mentioning. John Z ( talk)
I, personally, think really well of Grothendieck; that being said, i would posit that "greatest" / "worst" / "mediocre" / etc., when it comes to character and achievement, can never find a universally acceptable metric and is therefore a [non-neutral] POV. Grothendieck has achieved a lot; this should be documented in the article and from that the individual reader can draw their own conclusion as to his greatness, or lack of it. Quaeler ( talk) 06:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I note that Britannica calls Grothendieck "one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century". You know, this whole discussion reminds me of the time a physicist complained that calling David Hilbert "one of the most influential" was unsubstantiated POV. He even said he had asked some mathematician friends and they had never heard of the guy. [4] He later retracted his comments. -- C S ( talk) 17:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I am still amazed that there is any sort of discussion on this matter. I have met people who don't like some of the stylistic effects of Grothendieck's work, but I have never met anybody who takes issue with his occupying a place in the mathematical community of the second half of the twentieth century roughly comparable to that of Hilbert's at the beginning of the century. (Hilbert probably worked in more areas, but he lived at an earlier time.) Feketekave ( talk) 14:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I am not going to restore the "misleading wikilink" that another editor removed, because I do not want to get into a pointless edit war, but I want to explain why it was not misleading and why removing it may not have been a good idea. As the entry itself points out, Grothendieck is a leftist, and he was certainly familiar with the Long March. His title La Longue Marche à travers la théorie de Galois is a clear allusion to that. The reason I added the link was to explain why I changed the previous (bad) translation "The Long Walk," and now that the link isn't there I suspect someone who doesn't understand the allusion will think "Why 'long march'? Marche can be translated 'walk' or 'journey' or 'path'" -- and the entry will be graced with another mistranslation. Languagehat ( talk) 16:54, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
It seems slightly comical to give great emphasis to Grothendieck's supposed birth name - or, rather, as the source puts it, the name under which he was initially recorded. This name - Alexander Raddatz - is little more than a legal accident: Grothendieck was born to Hanna Grothendieck while she was still legally married to a Mr. Raddatz. Very soon after his birth - here again I am following the source cited in the first two lines of this article - Mr. Raddatz took the question of Alexander G.'s paternity to court; Alexander Schapiro/Tanaroff acknowledged his paternity. Presumably Alexander G.'s automatically took his mother's name, though somebody with more legal expertise on matters of paternity in the Weimar republic could enlighten us. Feketekave ( talk) 00:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay, guys ( User:Feketekave and unnamed IP), you can stop now. Please have your argument here about whether Grothendieck was French or German or both, not in the edit comments. Ryan Reich ( talk) 16:02, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
I just read this. The unnamed IP has been shadowing my edits on several articles; he has also made provably false claims about my edits repeatedly. I was advised by an administrator to leave him a warning that he or she has not heeded (and may not have got, since his or her IP address keeps shifting; all we know from now is that it is a Deutsche Telekom user).
I have absolutely no interest in getting into an ethnic edit war; my point is precisely that a classification by descent is misleading and unnecessary, besides being vaguely Naziesque. One can give all the importance one wants to Grothendieck's background in Germany; to make him into a Volksdeutscher by descent is offensive. I do not see any tags classifying him by any other sort of descent, and neither do I mean to introduce any. Feketekave ( talk) 04:36, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
There is an obvious argument that G. is of German descent, since his mother was undeniably German, and of course he was born in Berlin. It is also claimed that he never had French citizenship, so is not French, though of course he lived and worked all his life in France so is a French mathematician at the least by acclamation. For these reasons, he is in Category:People from Berlin and Category:French mathematicians; it is both redundant and misleading to put him in an "intersection category" since although at first glance he belongs to both parts, he is also said to be stateless (he used to be in Category:Stateless persons, but I don't know what happened to it). A more specific category is more useful than a more general one, since it provides arguments for its own inclusion as well as making more helpful navigational distinctions.
I don't wish to make generalizations about the habits of Wikipedia users, but I think much more energy has gone into using this category as a proxy for personal (or possibly nationalist) opinions than is justified by the possibility of anyone ever finding this article in a category as general as "X people of Y descent". A lot of big categories must be pretty useless as navigational aids unless you actually know what you are looking for, which defeats the purpose; it is really not appropriate to use inclusion in a category to claim the subject for one or another purpose. In this case, much more is known about G. than simply that he is "French" and some anscestor was German, and so rather than put him in the simplistic classification, we have him in the nuanced ones, which should satisfy the IP editor unless the words themselves matter to him. And that is not right. Ryan Reich ( talk) 14:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
"After the war, the young Grothendieck studied mathematics in France, initially at the University of Montpellier. He had decided to become a math teacher because he had been told that mathematical research had been completed early in the 20th century and there were no more open problems.[10] However, his talent was noticed, and he was encouraged to go to Paris in 1948."
I don't see where, in the article by Allyn Jackson or in the original text of Récoltes et Semailles, it says that he decided to become a math teacher. Certainly there is this quotation that Lebesgue had developed his theory of integration and thereby "completed" mathematical research, but I don't see anything about Grothendieck thus deciding to teach. Am I missing something obvious here? 99.231.110.182 ( talk) 11:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
The article mentions that there is a translation into English underway. I wanted to let a friend of mine read a portion of it, so I would not mind translating the part I need. Is there a website I can submit my translation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by --UVa IP address-- ( talk • contribs) 00:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
In the "Retirement into reclusion" section, the following statement is made: "It's worth noticing that the letter may be read as a piece of recursive humor…." This is a personal opinion, not an objective fact. Lestrade ( talk) 21:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)Lestrade
Hi, the link to doctoral student Jean Giraud is wrong. It leads to the comic book writer, not the mathematician. I couldn't figure how to edit, because the little edit link on the right-top of the page didn't appear to me. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.171.187.191 ( talk) 03:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
Curious that he is legally a stateless person. Though the infobox states this, no information on how this came to pass is in the article. I suggest this is included in the appropriate part of the biography. LukeSurl t c 21:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
He was long stateless due to his not having asked for French citizenship, to which he was presumably entitled (but didn't automatically possess, since he wasn't born in France). I have just come across a source that states that he did finally apply for (and, it is implied, of course got) French citizenship in 1971, once he became too old to be conscripted. See [ [6]]: "... et ne demandera sa naturalisation qu’en 1971, une fois certain qu’on ne lui demandera plus de faire son service militaire.". The page should now be edited accordingly, though it would be best to get a source that explicitly says that he currently holds French citizenship. Feketekave ( talk) 00:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Maybe it should be mentioned somewhere that Grothendieck had 3 children. Serge and Johanna and ??. It is written in the NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 51, NUMBER 10... -- helohe (talk) 23:57, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Large swathes of this article make grand but esoteric claims without sources. The need for sourcing is straight forward, but the article can't be read by anyone without a degree in mathematics, unless constant use of links is used to discovery the meaning of terms not defined in the text. For example, I have a bachelor's degree in biology and took every course upto but not including linear algebra, but "Grothendieck's early mathematical work was in functional analysis." Is meaningless. This can easily be fixed by an expert adding brief explanations along the lines of: "Grothendieck's early mathematical work was in functional analysis, the study of how X affects Y in the context of Z". This allows the reader to read the article without having to follow four score links to understand it. μηδείς ( talk) 19:20, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
Medeis. The part of the article that you see as jargon soup is the two-levels dumbed-down simplified explanation of Grothendieck's work, which to understand properly requires years of graduate study. It has at least been simplified to a level where someone with an advanced mathematics education should be able recognize the topics and follow the links for more information. To simplify it further we would have to say "he did advanced mathematics" and leave it at that. Maybe you want simple:Alexander Grothendieck. — David Eppstein ( talk) 02:41, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
Medeis writes at ITN discussion: "At this point you are just outright lying, no one has said anything about making the article 'accessible to someone with zero mathematical knowledge', I have mentioned a familiarity with calculus on the article's talk page..." I think this points to Medeis's primary misapprehension, that some familiarity with calculus is somehow going to be helpful here (he even mentions trigonometry and linear algebra). No, the mathematics involved is incredibly advanced. It is often not even encountered in graduate school. Even most mathematicians with PhDs lack the required background knowledge (myself included for many of his contributions). Some individuals have built their careers, even won Fields medals, by just understanding a small part of Grothendieck's work. Mentioning calculus as though it were a prerequisite is, to make a biological analogy, like someone saying "I saw a bird once. So please explain the biochemistry of bird behavior." When I point out that the person would need to know some biology, he says "But you're lying. I just told you that I saw a bird once." He then goes on in that same discussion to call mathematics contributors "incompetent". Well, yes, insofar as we are not able to convey advanced mathematics in a few pithy phrases, we are incompetent. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:53, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
I think μηδείς's points are quite good. This is not an article about mathematics, it's an article about a mathematician; extreme simplifications of his mathematics are compeltely appropriate here. μηδείς even offered a concrete example: "[Riemann-Roch] allows complex topologies to be dealt with algebraically," and I this sort of comment would indeed make the sentence much more understandable to a layperson. Unfortunately so far none of the (other) mathematicians here seem to have engaged with this particular suggestion. To take another example: the sentence "Grothendieck's emphasis on the role of universal properties brought category theory into the mainstream as an organizing principle" is not very helpful to anyone who doesn't know what it means for there to be an "organizing principle" of mathematics; I think it would be very reasonable to expand this comment out somewhat to say something about what sorts of objects to treat as fundamental when doing mathematics (or whatever; I have thought about this for all of 30 seconds), and to assess the actual significance for practicing mathematicians of this viewpoint (which, at least in some fields, seems to be substantial). Obviously not every single sentence requires this sort of addition, but sprinkling in a few of them among the fields of jargon would greatly improve the article. --
JBL (
talk) 23:33, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
I have had my edits reverted, and was referred here. Procedurally that is OK; but the revert was not so good, in the sense that I removed material that was in fact meaningless. The expository problem with Grothendieck is major (even for mathematicians talking to other mathematicians). Nothing can be done about it if some abstraction is not permitted. "Organizing principle" should be OK. It is abstract, but it is perfectly correct as a description of what is going on. This is an occasion for paraphrase using "in other words". More colloquially, one would say that Grothendieck's "big picture" was on a broader canvas than others had used.
The GRR theorem does not relate "topological properties of complex algebraic curves to their algebraic structure". That is quite wrong, and should not have been put back into the article. What Riemann and Roch did related to curves, which were complex. What Hirzebruch did related to complex varieties of higher dimension. What Grothendieck did related to mappings from one variety to another, over any field, not just the complex numbers. So the old version is factually simply incorrect.
There is actually a structural problem. The "Influence" section is placed where a more introductory exposition might be, in an "inverted pyramid" conception. Logically, how can one talk about the influence of Theorem A and its content at the same time? In Grothendieck's case the style of proof may be as influential as the content, also.
I suggest the "influence" section be moved down. I have just checked that "influence of Grothendieck" has a decent number of hits in Google Books; so the whole thing can be reconstructed with citations of what people in the field say the influence has been, which is how it should be. That is a way to deal with one of the problems. The expository problem as such should be recognised, but it is a different issue.
By the way, the "use of links is used to discover the meaning of terms not defined in the text" is certainly inevitable. Charles Matthews ( talk) 06:24, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
I've moved the "Influence" down, divided it up, and add some fresh references. The old structure of trying to have it as both an exposition, and an account of Grothendieck's influence, clearly wasn't working. The lead section can have some broad-brush comments: that is what it is there for, after all. The choice of language really has to be postponed until the structure has been improved. Charles Matthews ( talk) 13:47, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
See http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/mumford/blog/2014/Grothendieck.html for an obituary by David Mumford and John Tate that was intended to be published in Nature as an introduction to Grothendieck's work that could be readable to a non-specialist but educated audience. Unfortunately it was not published because the editors were afraid of even that much math appearing in their journal, but I think we can still use it as a source under the established expert clause of WP:SPS. — David Eppstein ( talk) 18:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Initially the article says he was born in Berlin, later ist says he was born in Weimar. The German WP says he was born in Berlin. Possibly there is a midunderstanding arising from: he was born in Berlin during the Weimar republic. Ontologix ( talk) 02:07, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
In 39 A. G. and his mother went to France and lived in various camps. the article states.
!!!
What about this: During the war Soljenitzyne went to Siberia and lived in various camps.
No. Alexandre Grothendieck and his mother were imprisoned in the camp of Rieucros. With a minimum of food, clothing and heat. But because they were arians they were not send to an extermination camp, as the father.
My english is too poor, but I hope that somebody will correct the article. It is true that after Rieucros they came under a more human internment system. Mio Nielsen, France -- 86.221.20.63 ( talk) 14:36, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you Nishidani. I am fully satisfied. We have in France some media interest for Grothendieck at this moment, due to a newly published book about him. The camp of Rieucros has an internet site today and I found a particular point : The head of the camp recommended, in a letter to his superiors, that the children should be obliged to go to school for a special reason: They should be protected from the harmful influence of their mothers! Mothers like Ida Mett and Hanka Grothendieck were highly cultivated persons writing several languages including french which was not their native language. I have a letter from H. Grothendieck send from the camp. Mio Nielsen-- 86.221.20.63 ( talk) 09:01, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Got it. Excuse me. M N-- 86.221.20.9 ( talk) 11:34, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
This fine man may own the record for having the most minutes of YouTube devoted to showing the back of his head as he writes in chalk on a green "blackboard."
Clearly he was a fine mind. Isn't it a pity that our technology couldn't have found a better way of teaching his ideas to the world?
David Lloyd-Jones ( talk) 18:31, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
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I am a bit startled to see that title conferred on Grothendieck based on a single reference. Surely von Neumann, Hilbert and Poincare at the very least would be worthy competitors for the same moniker? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.247.91.225 ( talk) 23:23, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
Tommster1 ( talk) 23:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
IN the article's early section 1.2 'World War 2', the following occurs:
"He and his mother were then interned in various camps from 1940 to 1942 as "undesirable dangerous foreigners".[20] The first was the Rieucros Camp, 'where his mother contracted the tuberculosis' which eventually caused her death..."
Later on, in section 1.10 'Family', regarding his mother, we see:
"... she died in 1957 from the tuberculosis that she contracted in camps for displaced persons"
Concentration camps for undesirable dangerous foreigners (1940-42) are not the same as camps for displaced persons, which latter occurred after V.E., not during the European theater war.
I do not know which account , if either, is true. They are contradictory though, so at least one is false.
Cheerio :-)
Grothendieck was born in Berlin to a German mother. As son of a German, he was German at birth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LMSchmitt ( talk • contribs) 00:42, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
This article says that AG was born in Berlin and further down in Weimar. Which is it.? LMSchmitt 19:54, 19 April 2022 (UTC)