Alexandre (Alexander) Grothendieck is a stateless mathematician in France known for his exceptional work in algebraic geometry. This notable geometer was born in the capital of Germany, Berlin, in 1928, a year before the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
Grothendieck's parents were Sascha Shapiro and Hanka Grothendieck. Shapiro was a Russian anarchist of Jewish decent, persecuted by the Czar and later by the Bolsheviks. He had lost his left arm during an attempted prison escape. He fled Russia and survived as a street photographer. Hanka Grothendieck was a young Protestant woman from Hamburg, Germany. Her father ran a hotel but later went bankrupt. Hanka resented authority and was a difficult child. She wanted to become an actress, but ended up a journalist. Hanka and Sasha, Grothendieck's parents, met in anarchist circles, Hanka was married to a German journalist, and still, they went on and had an affair. Alexandre Grothendieck was the fruit of this affair, Hanka divorced but his parents never married.
Until 1933, Alexandre lived with his parents in Berlin. After that, his father moved to Paris, his mother followed him. They left their son Alexandre behind. A pastor took care of him and he attended school in Hamburg, his mother's native town. Sasha Shapiro and Hanka Grothendieck participated in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). During World War II, Alexander Grothendieck and his parents were in France. The young Alexander remained hidden in a village. His father, as a Jew, was arrested and deported during the year 1942. He died at Auschwitz concentration camp, at the hands of the Nazis.
Alexander Grothendieck discovered mathematics during war years, in a French secondary school. After the war ended, he attended the University of Montpellier in the South of France, hoping to become a math teacher. Professors recognized his talent and sent him to Paris in 1948. He stayed at prestigious Normale Sup until 1950 before leaving for the University of Nancy where he wrote his dissertation under Laurent Schwartz. It was on functional analysis. By 1953 he was considered an expert on topological vector spaces. In 1957 he began working on algebraic geometry.
The newly created Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (inspired by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton) recruited Alexander Grothendieck in 1958. There he organized seminars and attracted talented students. For about a decade, he and his followers would play a significant role in the world of mathematics. During this period, Grothendieck discovered the subject of K-Theory. Prior to his time at IHÉS, he wrote a proof for the influential Alexandre Grothendieck–Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem in 1956, in algebraic geometry. At the height of his career as a mathematician, in 1966, Grothendieck was awarded the Fields Medal, the often called "Nobel Prize of Mathematics", but didn't attend the ceremony in Moscow, denouncing Soviet repression in Eastern Europe.
In the 1960s, the Vietnam war was raging. Grothendieck was an anti-war activist and went as far as giving lectures in Vietnam in the middle of bombings. In 1970, he discovered the institute he worked for had accepted military funding. Grothendieck was revolted and decided to quit his position at IHÉS. Grothendieck was upset over links between the military and the scientific community, as a form of protest he announced his retirement. A few years after this announcement, he would return to teaching, this time as a professor at the University of Montpellier. By 1988 he was officially retired.
In the 1980s, Alexandre became an open critic of the mathematical community. He published a lengthy manuscript titled "Récoltes et semailles" in 1986. The Crafoord Prize was awarded to him in 1988 but he declined it. More criticism followed and was forwarded to journalists. In order to mark his 60th birthday, a collection of research papers - The Grothendieck Festschrift - was assembled and published in 1990. In 1991, Grothendieck withdrew to a mountain village in the Pyrenées in a secret location and has been living there ever since. The reclusive mathematician is now aged 81.
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