Alexandre Grothendieck is an apatrid mathematician born in Germany (28 March 1928). He did his Phd under the direction of Jean Dieudonné and Laurent Schwartz? and worked at the IHES in France. He won the Fields Medal in 1966.
Grothendieck is one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. He revolutionised algebraic geometry and its relation with number theory. He introduced the etale topology? on the category of schemes and more generally a the notions of Grothendieck topology? and of topos?. He formally resigned from the IHES in 1970 after having discovered that the institute was receiving military funding. While not publishing mathematical research in conventional ways during the 1980s, he produced several influential manuscripts with limited distribution, with both mathematical and biographical content. His manuscript Pursuing Stacks was edited by Georges Maltsiniotis and it will appear in Documents Mathématiques?. The manuscript Les Dérivateurs is available online:
There are two other important manuscripts: