The greatest mathematician of the 20th century, who lived as a hermit until his death in 2014, began donating his manuscripts to the BnF. His family continued their efforts. His texts will only be accessible to researchers.
Unpublished manuscripts by mathematician Alexandre Grothendieck, one of the greatest scientific geniuses of the 20th century, entered the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) on Friday, September 29. This “Grothendieck collection” includes two river works, bequeathed to the BnF by the mathematician. The man who revolutionized algebraic geometry retired from the world in the early 1990s until his death in 2014, at the age of 86.
Writing, the ultimate means of communicating
It was in the village of Lasserre in Ariège, where he lived as a hermit, that he frantically wrote a handwritten sum entitled Thoughts on life and the cosmos: approximately 30,000 pages gathered in 41 volumes, mixing reflections on mathematics, philosophy, metaphysics and psychology. The second text, The key to dreams or Dialogue with the good Lord, is a typewritten essay that talks about the interpretation of dreams. These pages, of which pirate editions have already circulated, were written between 1987 and 1988. A period when he was still teaching at the University of Montpellier but had already largely broken with the community of mathematicians.
Considered one of the greatest – even the greatest – geniuses of mathematics of the 20th century for having revolutionized the discipline like Einstein physics, Alexandre Grothendieck – Fields medal 1966 (the equivalent of the Nobel for mathematicians – spent his life to put his thoughts down on paper. Last year, Gallimard editions published Harvests and sowinganother abundant work in which he describes over 1,500 pages his mathematical and critical thinking, as an environmental activist, the excesses of the scientific community.
Abundant texts
“Writing was his main activity”, Johanna Grothendieck, one of her five children, told AFP. Especially since he was a recluse in Lasserre. “He had completely cut ties with his family, we could no longer communicate with him. When we sent him a letter it was returned to the sender”, confides this 64-year-old ceramist who lives in the South-West, who came to Paris for the donation ceremony. At the end of his life, as Grothendieck’s health deteriorated, a neighbor gave them his news. Johanna finally comes to see her father, with one of her brothers.
They then discovered the manuscripts of Thoughts on life and the cosmos, carefully classified in the library. The author bequeathed the first parts of his work to the BnF in his 1997 will. His children donated the last volumes. “It represented an extremely important work in his eyes. He even wanted to create a foundation to take care of it”remembers her daughter.
Alongside Euclid
The singularity of these manuscripts is that “cover many areas at once” to form “a whole, a ‘cathedral-work’with undeniable literary qualities”, analyzes Jocelyn Monchamp, curator in the manuscripts department of the BnF. The deciphering work will take a long time to understand everything this genius wanted to say.
The collection joined the manuscript department of the Richelieu site, the historic cradle of the BnF, alongside the writings of Pierre and Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur. It will only be viewable by researchers. “It is a unique testimony in the history of science in the 20th century, of major importance for research,” believes Jocelyn Monchamp. During the ceremony on Friday, one of the volumes was placed in a glass case next to a manuscript by the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid.