Posted on Categories Expository Writing, History, Mathematics, Tutorials5 Comments on Let’s try to motivate schemes

## Let’s try to motivate schemes

Recently there has been some controversy over David Mumford’s Nature magazine invited obituary of Alexander Grothendieck being initially rejected on submission (see here and here). At issue was the attempt to explain the mathematical idea of schemes (one of Alexander Grothendieck’s most important contributions) to a non-mathematician audience. Professor Mumford is a mathematician of great stature and his explanation is better than anything I could even attempt. However, in addition to the issues he raises I don’t think he was sensitive enough to what a non-mathematician considers motivation.

I’ll take a quick stab at explaining a very tiny bit of the motivation of schemes. I not sure the kind of chain of analogies argument I am attempting would work in an obituary (or in a short length), so I certainly don’t presume to advise professor Mumford on his obituary of a great mathematician (and person). Continue reading Let’s try to motivate schemes