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In August 1991, Alexandre Grothendieck
a man widely regarded in the world of mathematics as the greatest visionary of the 20th century,
with such profound intuitions and such a penetrating mind that he was often compared to Albert Einstein
- abruptly burnt 25,000 pages of his mathematical writings ;
then, without telling anyone about it,
he left his home and disappeared in the Pyrenees.
No one has seen him over the last ten years.
His mail keeps on piling up at the University of Montpellier's Departmentof Mathematics
- the last institution to which he was related.
The two relatives in the south of France with whom he kept somewhat in touch
haven't heard of him in a long time ;
they don't even know whether he is still alive.
It's as if A. Grothendieck had simply vanished from the surface of the Earth.
"Here I open this science magazine and I see this page :
"Grothendieck, where has the maths genius gone ?" "
"I'd say that he doesn't try to describe this world,
he tries to describe the harmony of this world."
"He's completely breaking away from the standard method of approaching mathematics."
"He's an anarchist ! In the good sense of the word, neither god nor master."
"I know people from Japan, the US wrote about him..."
"He is like great ancestrals , he is Euclyde , he is Pythagore, he is Thales"
"If there's one thing to do now, in these years, it's to go search for him !"
"If there's one thing to do now, in these years, it's to go search for him !"
"Grothendieck ! I have a note, I'm leaving it,
if you just want to come out and have a look at it.
So should I leave it in the box ?
I feel like going in and putting it down by the door,
but I'm scared you might hit me with a pitchfork."