Mathematical Texts

Unpublished Mathematical Texts -- A collection built almost entirely by unexpected contributions and word of mouth rumors. New finds continue to appear!

Published Texts -- A very incomplete but growing collection of scans of Grothendieck's books, articles and seminars.

Correspondence -- A collection of references to letters from Grothendieck to others, some published, some unpublished, some soon-to-be published, some already available on line and some not yet.

Grothendieck's overviews of his own work

Esquisse Thématique  Grothendieck's description of the main themes of his life's work, written in 1972. Promenade à travers une oeuvre Grothendieck's 1983 essay from Récoltes et Semailles, covering the whole evolution of his life as a mathematician. Esquisse d'un Programme (Sketch of a Program) Grothendieck's 1983 research program as part of his application to spend the remaining four years of his professional activity before retirement in the CNRS. A complete bibliography of Grothendieck's published works. List of the doctoral theses written under Grothendieck's direction.

Other surveys and overviews of Grothendieck's work

• Quelques idées maitresses de l'oeuvre de A. Grothendieck.   P. Deligne’s overview of some fundamental ideas in Grothendieck’s work.
• Detailed review of the Grothendieck-Serre Correspondence. The book was published by the SMF, with English translation published by the AMS. A short version of this review appeared in the Mathematical Intelligencer.
• Notes on the life and work of Alexander Grothendieck.     An 18-page biographical article by Piotr Pragacz, originally published in Polish in Wiadomo´sci Matematyczne 40 (2004).
• The rising sea: Grothendieck on simplicity and generality.  A lecture by Colin McLarty.
• The rising tide: Grothendieck on simplicity and generality. A streaming video of a talk at MSRI by Colin McLarty on Grothendieck’s approach to mathematics.
• A Mad Day's Work: From Grothendieck to Connes and Kontsevitch. The evolution of concepts of space and symmetry.   An article by P. Cartier on the evolution of the concept of space with emphasis on Grothendieck’s contributions. Beware of biographical inaccuracies!
• Grothendieck et les motifs (P. Cartier) and Découvrir et transmettre (A. Herreman) (Notes sur l'histoire et la philosophie des mathématiques IV), The first entry in this collection of two independent texts on Grothendieck gives a general and very personal and readable overview of his contribution and approach to mathematics from the beginning. The second is not mathematical, but concerns Grothendieck's relation to the acts of reading, writing, and creation. It is also linked directly in the section on biographical texts.
• Alexander Grothendieck (in Italian).  An overview of Grothendieck's mathematical contribution by Luca Barbieri Viale.