10 Facts about Alexander Grothendieck

Friday, December 19th 2014. | Mathematics


Facts about Alexander Grothendieck present the ideas about German born French mathematician. He was born on 28 March 1928 and passed away on 13 November 2014. He gained fame since he was the leading mathematician who created the modern algebraic geometry. Check out facts about him below:

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 1: place of birth

Grothendieck was born in Germany. However, he spent most of his time in France. He choose to spell his name Alexander rather than picking Alexandre. He took his surname from his mother.

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 2: as a mathematician

He became a mathematician in 1949. He worked at the Institute des Hautes Études Scientifiques in 1958 till 1970 as a research professor.

Alexander Grothendieck Facts

Alexander Grothendieck Facts

 

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 3: political causes

Grothendieck decided to leave the mathematical community and focused more on political causes. He decided to live in isolation until his death in Pyrenees after he retired in 1988.

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 4: father

The life of Grothendieck was not easy. His father was Alexander “Sascha” Schapiro. But some people recognize him as Alexander Tanaroff.  Before his father moved to Germany in 1922, he was imprisoned in Russia.

Alexander Grothendieck Image

Alexander Grothendieck Image

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 5: mother

His mother was a journalist. She is Johanna “Hanka” Grothendieck from protestant family. Both his mother and father had broken away.  His mother decided to marry Johannes Raddatz, a journalist. She changed his name into Alexander Raddatz.  But in 1929, the marriage was dissolved. Even though the paternity of Alexander was claimed by Tanaroff, both of them never married.

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 6: education

He went to University of Montpellier to study mathematic in France.  But this early education was not really good for him since he failed in classes. Check out Alan Turing facts here.

Alexander Grothendieck Images

Alexander Grothendieck Images

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 7: University of Nancy

He decided to move to University of Nancy because he realized that he had lack of background of following high powered seminar. In that university, he created dissertation under Laurent Schwartz and Jean Dieudonné.

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 8: Golden Age Period

During the Golden Age of IHES, Alexander Grothendieck work focused in various themes such as topology, number theory, algebraic, complex analysis and category theory.

Alexander Grothendieck Pic

Alexander Grothendieck Pic

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 9: political views

Let’s find out the political view of Alexander Grothendieck. He was pacifist and radical. He did not like with the intervention of US in Vietnam.

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck 10: Vietnam War

He strongly protested the Vietnam War. He did it by giving lectures on category theory on the forest of Hanoi.

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck

Facts about Alexander Grothendieck

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