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Grothendieck, who passed away on November 13, 2014, left a huge amount (around 20.000 sheets) of personal notes in the University of Montpellier that he thought he was the only one to be able to decipher. I heard that this intellectual treasure has been stored even though Grothendieck did not want anyone to publish any of his works.

My question is therefore: has someone begun to examine these notes?

Ascenso
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    I think Pierre Cartier must know. It is said in Wikipedia that "Over 20,000 pages of Grothendieck's mathematical and other writings, held at the University of Montpellier, remain unpublished[36] .They are now being digitized for preservation and will probably be made available to the mathematical community[37]". Ref.36 is : (French) Le trésor oublié du génie des maths. Ref.37 is : (French) Les «gribouillis» d'Alexandre Grothendieck enfin sauvegardés . The two ref. are on line. May be you know all of this. – Al-Amrani Feb 13 '16 at 15:57
  • Possibly related: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/282871 – Watson Oct 07 '17 at 08:42
  • The archives had been used in http://www.iaz.uni-stuttgart.de/LstAlg/Kuenzer/Kuenzer/sinh.html (as part of references to Hoàng Xuân Sính's work) and it was transcribed a letter to Deligne. –  Jun 23 '18 at 21:01
  • You can see here : https://agrothendieck.github.io/ – user234212323 Feb 10 '22 at 14:45

2 Answers2

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Apparently 18,000 pages of Grothendieck's notes are going to be released on May 10, 2017 at 4:30 pm on the site of the University of Montpellier. I get this information from the following article: http://www.liberation.fr/sciences/2017/05/05/les-notes-du-mathematicien-alexandre-grothendieck-arrivent-sur-le-net_1567517


...and here is a link to the Université de Montpellier site where 18,000 of Grothendieck's notes are now posted!

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Here is a book (in French) where it is explained in detail how all of Grothendieck's private manuscripts were transported to Paris in November 2015, and saved there in a secure library:

Philippe Douroux, Alexandre Grothendieck- Sur les traces du dernier génie des mathématiques.

Ben McKay
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Al-Amrani
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  • It seems that Grothendieck's children want to be the first owners of all of their father's manuscripts . What's for ? That's the question ! – Al-Amrani May 21 '16 at 20:32
  • Weeks ago, the same author above, Ph. Douroux, published a long article in Le Monde 6/5/19 (french important news paper ) about Grothendieck's manuscripts (legacy). He is asking : What is the price ? 45 000 ? Who is the owner ? Grothendieck's five children ? The BNF (national french library) ? The question seems to be still unresolved . – Al-Amrani Jun 06 '19 at 09:59