neverendingbooks

Category: france

  • Huawei and French mathematics

    Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, appears to support (and divide) the French mathematical community. I was surprised to see that Laurent Lafforgue’s affiliation recently changed from ‘IHES’ to ‘Huawei’, for example here as one of the organisers of the Lake Como conference on ‘Unifying themes in geometry’. Judging from this short Huawei-clip (in French) he […]

  • Bourbaki and Grothendieck-Serre

    This time of year I’m usually in France, or at least I was before Covid. This might explain for my recent obsession with French math YouTube interviews. Today’s first one is about Bourbaki’s golden years, the period between WW2 and 1975. Alain Connes is trying to get some anecdotes from Jean-Pierre Serre, Pierre Cartier, and…

  • Grothendieck’s gribouillis (4)

    Fortunately, there are a few certainties left in life: In spring, you might expect the next instalment of Connes’ and Consani’s quest for Gabriel’s topos. Here’s the latest: $\overline{\mathbf{Spec}(\mathbb{Z})}$ and the Gromov norm. Every half year or so, Mochizuki’s circle-of-friends tries to create some buzz announcing the next IUTeich-workshop. I’ll spare you the link, if…

  • Grothendieck, at the theatre

    A few days ago, the theatre production “Rêves et Motifs” (Dreams and Motives) was put on stage in Argenteuil by la Compagnie Les Rémouleurs. The stage director Anne Bitran only discovered Grothendieck’s life by reading the front pages of French newspapers, the day after Grothendieck passed away, in November 2014. « Rêves et Motifs »…

  • a morning in the mountains

    For mornings like this I happily drive a day to be here.

  • a wintry chataigneraie

    It took us some time to clear the array of old chestnut trees. But it paid off. A good harvest easily gives half a ton of chestnuts, including some rare, older varieties. In the autumn, the coloured leaves make a spectacular view. Now it looks rather desolate. But, the wind piles up the fallen leaves…

  • NaNoWriMo (1)

    Some weeks ago I did register to be a participant of NaNoWriMo 2016. It’s a belated new-year’s resolution. When PS (pseudonymous sister), always eager to fill a 10 second silence at family dinners, asked (PS) And Lieven, what are your resolutions for 2016? she didn’t really expect an answer (for decades my generic reply has…

  • Grothendieck’s gribouillis (2)

    We left the story of Grothendieck’s Lasserre notes early 2015, uncertain whether they would ever be made public. Some things have happened since. Georges Maltsiniotis gave a talk at the Gothendieck conference in Montpellier in june 2015 having as title “Grothendieck’s manuscripts in Lasserre”, raising perhaps even more questions. Philippe Douroux, a journalist at the…

  • Map of the Parisian mathematical scene 1933-39

    . Michele Audin has written a book on the history of the Julia seminar (hat tip +Chandan Dalawat via Google+). The “Julia Seminar” was organised between 1933 and 1939, on monday afternoons, in the Darboux lecture hall of the Institut Henri Poincare. After good German tradition, the talks were followed by tea, “aimablement servi par…

  • Where is Fogas?

    A reading suggestion for Grothendieck-stalkers crawling around the Ariège region, near Saint-Girons, in search of ‘another house’ : better bring along the Fogas Chronicles by Julia Stagg.