Timeline for History and motivation for Tannaka, Krein, Grothendieck, Deligne et al. works on Tannaka-Krein theory?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 15, 2022 at 7:47 | comment | added | efs | A correction: Neantro Saavedra is actually chilean-peruvian. | |
| Jan 20, 2014 at 14:50 | comment | added | Donu Arapura | Perhaps enough has been said about this particular topic. | |
| Jan 20, 2014 at 3:55 | comment | added | Jonathan Chiche | As for Saavedra's thesis, I would find it extremely naive to believe that what Grothendieck states is totally false and that one would have to ignore what he says and talk to Deligne to "know the true story". Come on. Grothendieck and Deligne both are human beings. Ditto for Saavedra, Serre, Cartier, &c. Life is more complicated than mathematics. | |
| Jan 20, 2014 at 3:43 | comment | added | Jonathan Chiche | As often when talking about "Récoltes et semailles", I think the discussion seems to get somewhat more passionate than it should, and thus perhaps inadequate for MO. Still, people who have read the whole text should have noticed that, from the very beginning, Grothendieck states that some assertions he has made hundreds of pages later are wrong. This is related to the story surrounding Mebkhout's thesis rather than Saavedra's one, but I think it is worth mentioning in the light of what is often said of this text. (Including in comments above.) (Continued.) | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 19:40 | comment | added | user9072 | @anon it might serve the purpose to inform more people that many things there are totally false. Sometimes I am under the impression some and maybe not too few people actually believe this text is to be taken as a factual account of history. | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 19:28 | comment | added | abz | @quid I disagree with you. Récoltes et Semailles contains a large number of very unpleasant statements about mathematicians, many totally false. Repeating them here serves no useful purpose. | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 18:26 | comment | added | user9072 | @anon IMO, Olivier put it in context via his first comment, and also in replying to you. The information seems relevant to the (side-)discussion and it is generally available anyway. Actually, I think it is better such things get mentioned and put into context (also by comments as yours) rather than they are just around. | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 18:00 | comment | added | abz | @Olivier: Why do you keep repeating Grothendieck's paranoid rantings? The suggestion that Deligne intentionally ignored Saavedra's error so that he could get the glory himself is libelous nonsense. If you want to know the true story of Saavedra's thesis, I suggest that you ignore Grothendieck and talk to Deligne. | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 17:59 | comment | added | user9072 | @JonathanChiche the phrase you quote is related to Jouanolou, but still (also) for Saavedra's thesis it comes up that G. was informed of having been in the jury but had no recollection of it (two/three pages before). | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 17:11 | comment | added | Jonathan Chiche | Actually, it does not seem so strange to me now that the story should be related to Saavedra, since Grothendieck is talking (if I am not mistaken) about a thesis which does not satisfies him at the time of his writing. But then what is that letter I recall? Sorry for my blurred memory. I have lost my electronic copy of Récoltes & semailles. | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 17:03 | comment | added | Jonathan Chiche | « [Grothendieck] admits that he was at Saavedra's PhD defense, did not notice the mistake and that he has no recollection of it all anyway (even of being there). » I recall a similar story, but I am surprised this is related to Saavedra. (I thought the story I had in mind was related to Berthelot or rather Jouanolou, who later sent a letter going along the line "Pour autant que j'aie pu le constater, tous les membres du jury étaient présents".) Can you give a reference and citations? May I ask a similar request as regards "borderline psychotic accusations"? (I do not know what it means.) | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 9:54 | comment | added | Olivier | @anon Yes, I agree, this part of Récoltes et Semailles is pretty remarkable (not in the good sense): on the one hand, G. says that Saavedra was so mediocre that he could not have produced his lecture note, that Deligne probably intentionally let Saavedra's mistake be published in order to reap the glory later and that he himself recalls being aware of the difficulties and solutions before Saavedra's even started his thesis; then a few pages later he admits that he was at Saavedra's PhD defense, did not notice the mistake and that he has no recollection of it all anyway (even of being there). | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 2:01 | comment | added | abz | What Grothendieck says about Saavedra's thesis in Récoltes et Semailles is so unreliable, I wouldn't dignify it as giving "one side of the story". Deligne, who was effectively Saavedra's adviser for his last two years, has a very different view. I'm prepared to believe that Saavedra proved less than Grothendieck hoped was true, but because the (Grothedieck's?) definition of a Tannakian category was wrong, what Grothendieck hoped probably wasn't actually true. | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 0:04 | comment | added | Tom Leinster | @Olivier: that is interesting (though as you note, it's just one side of the story). | |
| Jan 18, 2014 at 21:38 | comment | added | Olivier | @TomLeinster Grothendieck is extremely severe with Neantro Saavedra in Récoltes et Semailles and explicitly asserts that the thesis contains less than the notes he gave Saavedra at the onset of his work. As this part of the book is fraught with paranoia, innuendoes and borderline psychotic accusations, I am not sure what to conclude, though. | |
| Jan 18, 2014 at 19:37 | comment | added | abx | You are right, my formulation was too harsh. However I think what Joel says is accurate: Grothendieck had all the ideas in his mind, but no time (or no desire) to work out the details, which he proposed to a student. This is what happened with most of his students. | |
| Jan 18, 2014 at 19:08 | comment | added | Tom Leinster | "I would guess that his motivation was essentially to get his degree, and that the ideas came from Grothendieck" - I have no idea whether this is true or false, but I think this kind of speculation has the negative effect of reinforcing the star system, whereby the contributions of the famous are inflated and those of relative unknowns are minimized. For all the evidence we have, all the ideas in Saavedra's thesis came from Saavedra, and none from Grothendieck. I'm not saying that's what happened, just that it's unfair to make assumptions based on reputation alone. | |
| Jan 18, 2014 at 15:22 | history | answered | abx | CC BY-SA 3.0 |