28,000 pages by Alexandre Grothendieck

He changed the landscape of mathematics. Alexandre Grothendieck left behind some 28,000 unpublished pages. This treasure trove, where the master's ultimate insights may lie, has finally been unveiled. The Grothendieck Archives website is now online.


Alexandre Grothendieck passed away on November 13, 2014, at the age of 86. The enfant terrible of mathematics had long since placed himself on the bangs of the scientific community. Taking refuge in Lasserre, a small village in the Pyrenees, he led a hermit's life. The refounder of algebraic geometry, the greatest mathematician of the 20th century - as many of his peers called him - had chosen silence.

Activist for peace and ecology

Should we continue research? asked this peace activist who advocated radical ecology. In 1970, his answer was found. Having learned that the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, where he was working at the time, was receiving subsidies from the Ministry of Defense, Grothendieck resigned.
Since then, however, the master has never stopped writing, corresponding and working. In 1990, he entrusted his entire mathematical archive to Jean Malgoire. This former student, a teacher-researcher at the University of Montpellier, kept the Grothendieck archives at his home until 2010, when he deposited them with the University of Montpellier.

Unpublished manuscripts

The Grothendieck collection includes unpublished manuscripts of major twentieth-century mathematical theories, particularly algebraic geometry. It represents the majority of Grothendieck's work from 1949 to 1991, and reveals the scientific exchanges of a mathematician at the pinnacle of international research. It also provides elements for the study of the development of his work.
After inventory and conservation measures, these documents were digitized in 2016. Since May 10, a significant proportion of them (around 18,000 pages) have been freely accessible on the Web. What are we discovering? New strokes of genius, undoubtedly, peppering numerous and disparate writings. "Seeds that it will be up to us to nurture," suggests Jean Malgoire. In the world of mathematics, Alexandre Grothendieck has perhaps not finished illuminating unknown lands.