Working group on proofs and Grothendieck topologies

A working group of about 20 researchers has formed to investigate computational aspects of the methodology ‘toposes as bridges’, with particular reference to the proof-theoretic equivalences established in Chapters 3 and 8 of my book Theories, Sites, Toposes: Relating and studying mathematical theories through topos-theoretic ‘bridges’ and described in these slides.

Bridge between Grothendieck topologies and quotients

The organizer is Laurent Lafforgue, and the meetings will take place at the Huawei Lagrange Center for Mathematics and Computation in Paris, starting from the first one, which has happened today.

A final goal is to implement these techniques on a computer, to automatically generate mathematical results by exploiting the capacity of ‘bridges’ to significantly transform the level of complexity of notions and results. Back in 2010, when I first evoked this possibility in the paper The unification of Mathematics via Topos Theory, that idea was regarded with a lot of skepticism, as something almost too good to be true. Now, the time is ripe to start making that dream into reality.

Récoltes et Semailles

The famous autobiographical work in two volumes by Alexander Grothendieck has just been officially published by Gallimard!

This book is a must for anyone who wants to learn about the vision inspiring Grothendieck’s discoveries and reflect on ethical and sociological issues in mathematics and beyond.

I have been invited by the Editor to contribute a short text presenting the book, to be included in a booklet sold together with it and also containing texts by other mathematicians. Here is it:

An update: Sayantan Roy @sayantan-roy has kindly translated my text into English. Here is his translation:

Lectures Grothendieckiennes

The volume of proceedings of the lecture series Lectures Grothendieckiennes given in the academic year 2017-2018 at the Ecole Normale Superieure (Paris) is now available!

This book, which celebrates Grothendieck’s mathematical heritage, is prefaced by Peter Scholze and features contributions by Pierre Cartier, Olivia Caramello, Alain Connes, Laurent Lafforgue, Colin McLarty, Gilles Pisier, Jean-Jacques Szczeciniarz and Fernando Zalamea.

My contribution is available here:

The videos of the lectures are available from YouTube at this link.