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Scheme theory — Éléments and Séminaire de géométrie algébrique — Alexander Grothendieck

~1960 AD · Transmission: Global
MathematicsTheoryGermanic

Alexander Grothendieck introduces from 1960 onward, at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Paris, scheme theory, published in two major series: the Éléments de géométrie algébrique (EGA, with the collaboration of Jean Dieudonné, 1960-1967) and the Séminaire de géométrie algébrique (SGA, 1960-1969). Scheme theory completely generalizes and reformulates the foundations of algebraic geometry established by André Weil in 1946, further unifying it with much of number theory, and provides the technical apparatus — in particular étale cohomology — needed to tackle the Weil conjectures, which Pierre Deligne would finally prove in 1973-74. Grothendieck received the Fields Medal in 1966, but declined to travel to the Moscow congress to collect it in person, in protest of the Soviet Union's military expansion; his political activism also included teaching category theory classes in the forests near Hanoi while the city was being bombed, as a protest against the Vietnam War.

InstitutionInstitut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS)
Historical regionGermany (born in Berlin) / France
Primary sourceGrothendieck, A.; Dieudonné, J. — Éléments de géométrie algébrique (Publications Mathématiques de l'IHÉS, 1960-1967); Grothendieck, A. and collaborators — Séminaire de géométrie algébrique du Bois-Marie (1960-1969)
Secondary sourceWikipedia — Alexander Grothendieck / Éléments de géométrie algébrique; Chai, C.-L.; Oort, F. — Life and Work of Alexander Grothendieck
Original languageFrench
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