"Esquisse d'un Programme" (Sketch of a Programme) is a famous proposal for long-term mathematical research made by the German-born, French mathematician
Alexander Grothendieck in 1984. He pursued the sequence of logically linked ideas in his important project proposal from 1984 until 1988, but his proposed research continues to date to be of major interest in several branches of advanced mathematics. Grothendieck's vision provides inspiration today for several developments in mathematics such as the extension and generalization of
Galois theory, which is currently being extended based on his original proposal.
Brief history
Submitted in 1984, the ''Esquisse d'un Programme'' was a proposal submitted by Alexander Grothendieck for a position at the
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. The proposal was not successful, but Grothendieck obtained a special position where, while keeping his affiliation at the University of Montpellier, he was paid by the CNRS and released of his teaching obligations. Grothendieck held this position from 1984 till 1988. This proposal was not formally published until 1997, because the author "could not be found, much less his permission requested". The outlines of ''
dessins d'enfants'', or "children's drawings", and "
Anabelian geometry", that are contained in this manuscript continue to inspire research; thus, "Anabelian geometry is a proposed theory in
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, describing the way the
algebraic fundamental group
Algebraic may refer to any subject related to algebra in mathematics and related branches like algebraic number theory and algebraic topology. The word algebra itself has several meanings.
Algebraic may also refer to:
* Algebraic data type, a dat ...
''G'' of an
algebraic variety ''V'', or some related geometric object, determines how ''V'' can be mapped into another geometric object ''W'', under the assumption that ''G'' is not an
abelian group, in the sense of being strongly
noncommutative. The word ''anabelian'' (an
alpha privative ''an-'' before ''abelian'') was introduced in ''Esquisse d'un Programme''. While the work of Grothendieck was for many years unpublished, and unavailable through the traditional formal scholarly channels, the formulation and predictions of the proposed theory received much attention, and some alterations, at the hands of a number of mathematicians. Those who have researched in this area have obtained some expected and related results, and in the 21st century the beginnings of such a theory started to be available."
Abstract of Grothendieck's programme
("''Sommaire''")
*1. The Proposal and enterprise ("Envoi").
*2. "
Teichmüller's Lego-game and the
Galois group of
Q over Q" ("Un jeu de “Lego-Teichmüller” et le groupe de
Galois de
Q sur Q").
*3.
Number fields
In mathematics, an algebraic number field (or simply number field) is an extension field K of the field of rational numbers such that the field extension K / \mathbb has finite degree (and hence is an algebraic field extension).
Thus K is a ...
associated with
dessins d'enfant". ("Corps de nombres associés à un dessin d’enfant").
*4.
Regular polyhedra over
finite fields ("Polyèdres réguliers sur les corps finis").
*5.
General topology or a '
Moderated Topology' ("Haro sur la topologie dite 'générale', et réflexions heuristiques vers une topologie dite 'modérée").
*6.
Differentiable theories and
moderated theories
Moderation is the process of eliminating or lessening extremes. It is used to ensure normality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted. Common uses of moderation include:
*Ensuring consistency and accuracy in the marking of stud ...
("Théories différentiables" (à la Nash) et “théories modérées").
*7.
Pursuing Stacks
''Pursuing Stacks'' (french: À la Poursuite des Champs) is an influential 1983 mathematical manuscript by Alexander Grothendieck. It consists of a 12-page letter to Daniel Quillen followed by about 600 pages of research notes.
The topic of the ...
("À la Poursuite des Champs").
*8.
Two-dimensional geometry ("Digressions de géométrie bidimensionnelle").
*9. Summary of proposed studies ("Bilan d’une activité enseignante").
*10. Epilogue.
*Notes
Suggested further reading for the interested mathematical reader is provided
in the ''References'' section.
Extensions of Galois's theory for groups: Galois groupoids, categories and functors
Galois developed a powerful, fundamental
algebraic theory in mathematics that provides very efficient computations for certain algebraic problems by utilizing the algebraic concept of
groups, which is now known as the theory of
Galois groups; such computations were not possible before, and also in many cases are much more effective than the 'direct' calculations without using groups.
[Cartier, Pierre (1998), "La Folle Journée, de Grothendieck à Connes et Kontsevich — Évolution des Notions d'Espace et de Symétrie", ''Les Relations entre les Mathématiques et la Physique Théorique — Festschrift for the 40th anniversary of the ''IHÉS'', Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques'', pp. 11–19] To begin with, Alexander Grothendieck stated in his proposal:'' "Thus, the group of Galois is realized as the
automorphism group of a concrete,
pro-finite group In mathematics, a profinite group is a topological group that is in a certain sense assembled from a system of finite groups.
The idea of using a profinite group is to provide a "uniform", or "synoptic", view of an entire system of finite groups ...
which respects certain structures that are essential to this group."'' This fundamental, Galois group theory in mathematics has been considerably expanded, at first to
groupoids- as proposed in Alexander Grothendieck's ''Esquisse d' un Programme'' (''EdP'')- and now already partially carried out for groupoids; the latter are now further developed beyond groupoids to categories by several groups of mathematicians. Here, we shall focus only on the well-established and fully validated extensions of Galois' theory. Thus, EdP also proposed and anticipated, along previous Alexander Grothendieck's ''
IHÉS'' seminars (
SGA1 to
SGA4) held in the 1960s, the development of even more powerful extensions of the original Galois's theory for groups by utilizing categories,
functors and
natural transformations, as well as further expansion of the manifold of ideas presented in Alexander Grothendieck's ''
Descent Theory''. The notion of
motive has also been pursued actively. This was developed into the
motivic Galois group,
Grothendieck topology and Grothendieck category
. Such developments were recently extended in
algebraic topology ''via''
representable functors and the
fundamental groupoid functor.
See also
*
Anabelian geometry
*
Grothendieck's Galois theory
*
Grothendieck's Séminaire de géométrie algébrique
*
Stratified space
References
Related works by Alexander Grothendieck
*
Alexander Grothendieck. 1971,
Revêtements Étales et
Groupe Fondamental (
SGA1), chapter VI: ''
Catégories fibrées et descente'', Lecture Notes in Math. 224, Springer-Verlag: Berlin.
*Alexander Grothendieck. 1957, Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique,'' Tohoku Mathematics Journal'', 9, 119-221.
*Alexander Grothendieck and
Jean Dieudonné.: 1960,''
Éléments de géométrie algébrique''., Publ. ''
Inst. des Hautes Études Scientifiques,'' ''(
IHÉS)'', 4.
*Alexander Grothendieck et al.,1971.
Séminaire de Géométrie Algébrique du Bois-Marie, Vol. 1-7, Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
*Alexander Grothendieck. 1962. ''Séminaires en Géométrie Algébrique du Bois-Marie'', Vol. 2 -
Cohomologie Locale des Faisceaux Cohèrents et
Théorèmes de Lefschetz Locaux et Globaux., pp. 287. (''with an additional contributed exposé by Mme. Michele Raynaud''). (Typewritten manuscript available in French; see also a brief summary in English References Cited:
**
Jean-Pierre Serre. 1964.
Cohomologie Galoisienne, Springer-Verlag: Berlin.
**
J. L. Verdier. 1965.
Algèbre homologiques et Catégories derivées.
North Holland Publ. Cie).
*Alexander Grothendieck et al. Séminaires en Géometrie Algèbrique- 4, Tome 1, Exposé 1 (or the Appendix to Exposée 1, by `
N. Bourbaki) for more detail and a large number of results.
AG4 is freely available in French; also available is an extensive Abstract in English.
*Alexander Grothendieck, 1984
"Esquisse d'un Programme" (1984 manuscript), finally published in "
Geometric Galois Actions", L. Schneps, P. Lochak, eds., ''London Math. Soc. Lecture Notes'' 242,
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer.
Cambr ...
, 1997, pp. 5-48
English transl. ibid., pp. 243-283. .
*Alexander Grothendieck, "
La longue marche in à travers la théorie de Galois.
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on Figure 8 ( ...
" = "The Long March Towards/Across the Theory of
Galois", 1981 manuscript,
University of Montpellier preprint series 1996, edited by J. Malgoire.
Other related publications
*.
*
*
*.
External links
Fundamental Groupoid Functors{Dead link, date=August 2019 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes , Planet Physics.
The best rejected proposal ever Never Ending Books, Lieven le Bruyn
Notes Anabéliennes A. Grothendieck.
Group theory
Algebraic geometry
Category theory
Algebraic topology
Mathematics papers
1983 documents