Re: [HM] Grothendieck's membership of Bourbaki

Leo Corry (leo@emc.co.il)
Sat, 26 Sep 1998 09:15:12 GMT

As Liliane Beaulieu already wrote, Grothendieck was indeed a member
of Bourbaki. It would be interesting to know, in the first place, the
source of A.R.D.Mathias' suspicion that he was not. This is interesting
because I have never come across such an opinion before, so that I'm
really curious about the background to it.

The passage I quoted in my Synthese article points to the fact that, at
some point, Bourbaki faced the need to discuss a possible combination of
categories with Bourbaki's theory of structures. The fact that nothing
came out of that proposed Chap V of the book on Set Theory, is very
indicative in itself. I discuss this a bit in that article and more in
detail in my book" _Modern Algebra and the Rise of Mathematical Structures_.

Concerning Mandelbrojt, there is not much I can add to Liliane's remark.
Perhaps only this: in an article by Benoit Mandelbrot (whose exact
reference I cannot recall at the moment, but appears in the bibliography
in my book) he speaks of his uncle and how his own work evolved partly as
a backlash against Bourbaki.

I hope this clarifies something to someone.

Leo Corry