Until two days back, the name, Alexandre Grothendieck, was vaguely familiar to me through my distant understanding of the mathematics he had done. I knew that he was responsible for a lot of upheavals in that field during the last century; other than that, Grothendieck remained very much outside the purview of my knowledge. Yesterday…
Writing a mathematical paper is both an act of recording mathematical content and a means of communication of one's work. In contrast with other types of writing, the style of math papers is incredibly rigid and resistant to even modest innovation. As a result, both goals suffer, sometimes immeasurably. The clarity suffers the most, which…
At 86, Britain’s preeminent mathematical matchmaker is still tackling the big questions and dreaming of a union between the quantum and the gravitational forces