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Tag: McLarty

From Weil’s foundations to schemes

Last time, we’ve seen that the first time ‘schemes’ were introduced was in ‘La Tribu’ (the internal Bourbaki-account of their congresses) of the May-June 1955 congress in Chicago.

Here, we will focus on the events leading up to that event. If you always thought Grothendieck invented the word ‘schemes’, here’s what Colin McLarty wrote:

“A story says that in a Paris café around 1955 Grothendieck asked his friends “what is a scheme?”. At the time only an undefined idea of “schéma” was current in Paris, meaning more or less whatever would improve on Weil’s foundations.” (McLarty in The Rising Sea)

What were Weil’s foundations of algebraic geometry?

Well, let’s see how Weil defined an affine variety over a field $k$. First you consider a ‘universal field’ $K$ containing $k$, that is, $K$ is an algebraically closed field of infinite transcendence degree over $k$. A point of $n$-dimensional affine space is an $n$-tuple $x=(x_1,\dots,x_n) \in K^n$. For such a point $x$ you consider the field $k(x)$ which is the subfield of $K$ generated by $k$ and the coordinates $x_i$ of $x$.

Alternatively, the field $k(x)$ is the field of fractions of the affine domain $R=k[z_1,\dots,z_n]/I$ where $I$ is the prime ideal of all polynomials $f \in k[z_1,\dots,z_n]$ such that $f(x) = f(x_1,\dots,x_n)=0$.

An affine $k$-variety $V$ is associated to a ‘generic point’ $x=(x_1,\dots,x_n)$, meaning that the field $k(x)$ is a ‘regular extension’ of $k$ (that is, for all field-extensions $k’$ of $k$, the tensor product $k(x) \otimes_k k’$ does not contain zero-divisors.

The points of $V$ are the ‘specialisations’ of $x$, that is, all points $y=(y_1,\dots,y_n)$ such that $f(y_1,\dots,y_n)=0$ for all $f \in I$.

Perhaps an example? Let $k = \mathbb{Q}$ and $K=\mathbb{C}$ and take $x=(i,\pi)$ in the affine plane $\mathbb{C}^2$. What is the corresponding prime ideal $I$ of $\mathbb{Q}[z_1,z_2]$? Well, $i$ is a solution to $z_1^2+1=0$ whereas $\pi$ is transcendental over $\mathbb{Q}$, so $I=(z_1^2+1)$ and $R=\mathbb{Q}[z_1,z_2]/I= \mathbb{Q}(i)[z_2]$.

Is $x=(i,\pi)$ a generic point? Well, suppose it were, then the points of the corresponding affine variety $V$ would be all couples $(\pm i, \lambda)$ with $\lambda \in \mathbb{C}$ which is the union of two lines in $\mathbb{C}^2$. But then $i \otimes 1 + 1 \otimes i$ is a zero-divisor in $\mathbb{Q}(x) \otimes_{\mathbb{Q}} \mathbb{Q}(i)$. So no, it is not a generic point over $\mathbb{Q}$ and does not define an affine $\mathbb{Q}$-variety.

If we would have started with $k=\mathbb{Q}(i)$, then $x=(i,\pi)$ is generic and the corresponding affine variety $V$ consists of all points $(i,\lambda) \in \mathbb{C}^2$.

If this is new to you, consider yourself lucky to be young enough to have learned AG from Fulton’s Algebraic curves, or Hartshorne’s chapter 1 if you were that ambitious.

By 1955, Serre had written his FAC, and Bourbaki had developed enough commutative algebra to turn His attention to algebraic geometry.

La Ciotat congress (February 27th – March 6th, 1955)

With a splendid view on the mediterranean, a small group of Bourbaki members (Henri Cartan (then 51), with two of his former Ph.D. students: Jean-Louis Koszul (then 34), and Jean-Pierre Serre (then 29, and fresh Fields medaillist), Jacques Dixmier (then 31), and Pierre Samuel (then 34), a former student of Zariski’s) discussed a previous ‘Rapport de Geometrie Algebrique'(no. 206) and arrived at some unanimous decisions:

1. Algebraic varieties must be sets of points, which will not change at every moment.
2. One should include ‘abstract’ varieties, obtained by gluing (fibres, etc.).
3. All necessary algebra must have been previously proved.
4. The main application of purely algebraic methods being characteristic p, we will hide nothing of the unpleasant phenomena that occur there.



(Henri Cartan and Jean-Pierre Serre, photo by Paul Halmos)

The approach the propose is clearly based on Serre’s FAC. The points of an affine variety are the maximal ideals of an affine $k$-algebra, this set is equipped with the Zariski topology such that the local rings form a structure sheaf. Abstract varieties are then constructed by gluing these topological spaces and sheaves.

At the insistence of the ‘specialistes’ (Serre, and Samuel who had just written his book ‘Méthodes d’algèbre abstraite en géométrie algébrique’) two additional points are adopted, but with some hesitation. The first being a jibe at Weil:
1. …The congress, being a little disgusted by the artificiality of the generic point, does not want $K$ to be always of infinite transcendent degree over $k$. It admits that generic points are convenient in certain circumstances, but refuses to see them put to all the sauces: one could speak of a coordinate ring or of a functionfield without stuffing it by force into $K$.
2. Trying to include the arithmetic case.

The last point was problematic as all their algebras were supposed to be affine over a field $k$, and they wouldn’t go further than to allow the overfield $K$ to be its algebraic closure. Further, (and this caused a lot of heavy discussions at coming congresses) they allowed their varieties to be reducible.

The Chicago congress (May 30th – June 2nd 1955)

Apart from Samuel, a different group of Bourbakis gathered for the ‘second Caucus des Illinois’ at Eckhart Hall, including three founding members Weil (then 49), Dixmier (then 49) and Chevalley (then 46), and two youngsters, Armand Borel (then 32) and Serge Lang (then 28).

Their reaction to the La Ciotat meeting (the ‘congress of the public bench’) was swift:

(page 1) : “The caucus discovered a public bench near Eckhart Hall, but didn’t do much with it.”
(page 2) : “The caucus did not judge La Ciotat’s plan beyond reproach, and proposed a completely different plan.”

They wanted to include the arithmetic case by defining as affine scheme the set of all prime ideals (or rather, the localisations at these prime ideals) of a finitely generated domain over a Dedekind domain. They continue:

(page 4) : “The notion of a scheme covers the arithmetic case, and is extracted from the illustrious works of Nagata, themselves inspired by the scholarly cogitations of Chevalley. This means that the latter managed to sell all his ideas to the caucus. The Pope of Chicago, very happy to be able to reject very far projective varieties and Chow coordinates, willingly rallied to the suggestions of his illustrious colleague. However, we have not attempted to define varieties in the arithmetic case. Weil’s principle is that it is unclear what will come out of Nagata’s tricks, and that the only stable thing in arithmetic theory is reduction modulo $p$ a la Shimura.”

“Contrary to the decisions of La Ciotat, we do not want to glue reducible stuff, nor call them varieties. … We even decide to limit ourselves to absolutely irreducible varieties, which alone will have the right to the name of varieties.”

The insistence on absolutely irreducibility is understandable from Weil’s perspective as only they will have a generic point. But why does he go along with Chevalley’s proposal of an affine scheme?

In Weil’s approach, a point of the affine variety $V$ determined by a generic point $x=(x_1,\dots,x_n)$ determines a prime ideal $Q$ of the domain $R=k[x_1,\dots,x_n]$, so Chevalley’s proposal to consider all prime ideals (rather than only the maximal ideals of an affine algebra) seems right to Weil.

However in Weil’s approach there are usually several points corresponding to the same prime ideal $Q$ of $R$, namely all possible embeddings of the ring $R/Q$ in that huge field $K$, so whenever $R/Q$ is not algebraic over $k$, there are infinitely Weil-points of $V$ corresponding to $Q$ (whence the La Ciotat criticism that points of a variety were not supposed to change at every moment).

According to Ralf Krömer in his book Tool and Object – a history and philosophy of category theory this shift from Weil-points to prime ideals of $R$ may explain Chevalley’s use of the word ‘scheme’:

(page 164) : “The ‘scheme of the variety’ denotes ‘what is invariant in a variety’.”

Another time we will see how internal discussion influenced the further Bourbaki congresses until Grothendieck came up with his ‘hyperplan’.

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Grothendieck talks

In 2017-18, the seminar Lectures grothendieckiennes took place at the ENS in Paris. Among the speakers were Alain Connes, Pierre Cartier, Laurent Lafforgue and Georges Maltsiniotis.

Olivia Caramello, who also contributed to the seminar, posts on her blog Around Toposes that the proceedings of this lectures series is now available from the SMF.

Olivia’s blogpost links also to the YouTube channel of the seminar. Several of these talks are well worth your time watching.

If you are at all interested in toposes and their history, and if you have 90 minutes to kill, I strongly recommend watching Colin McLarthy’s talk Grothendieck’s 1973 topos lectures:

In 1973, Grothendieck gave three lectures series at the Department of Mathematics of SUNY at Buffalo, the first on ‘Algebraic Geometry’, the second on ‘The Theory of Algebraic Groups’ and the third one on ‘Topos Theory’.

All of these Grothendieck talks were audio(!)-taped by John (Jack) Duskin, who kept and preserved them with the help of William Lawvere. They constitute more than 100 hours of rare recordings of Grothendieck.

This MathOverflow (soft) question links to this page stating:

“The copyright of all these recordings is that of the Department of Mathematics of SUNY at Buffalo to whose representatives, in particular Professors Emeritus Jack DUSKIN and Bill LAWVERE exceptional thanks are due both for the preservation and transmission of this historic archive, the only substantial archive of recordings of courses given by one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, whose work and ideas exercised arguably the most profound influence of any individual figure in shaping the mathematics of the second half od the 20th Century. The material which it is proposed to make available here, with their agreement, will form a mirror site to the principal site entitled “Grothendieck at Buffalo” (url: ).”

Sadly, the URL is still missing.

Fortunately, another answer links to the Grothendieck project Thèmes pour une Harmonie by Mateo Carmona. If you scroll down to the 1973-section, you’ll find there all of the recordings of these three Grothendieck series of talks!

To whet your appetite, here’s the first part of his talk on topos theory on April 4th, 1973:

For all subsequent recordings of his talks in the Topos Theory series on May 11th, May 18th, May 25th, May 30th, June 4th, June 6th, June 20th, June 27th, July 2nd, July 10th, July 11th and July 12th, please consult Mateo’s website (under section 1973).

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Grothendieck’s Café

“A story says that in a Paris café around 1955 Grothendieck asked his friends “what is a scheme?”. At the time only an undefined idea of “schéma” was current in Paris, meaning more or less whatever would improve on Weil’s foundations.” (McLarty in The Rising Sea)

Finding that particular café in Paris, presumably in the 5th arrondissement, seemed like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Until now.

In trying to solve the next riddle in Bourbaki’s death announcement:

A reception will be held at the Bar ‘The Direct Products’, at the crossroads of the Projective Resolutions (formerly Koszul square)

I’ve been reading Mathematics, a novel by Jacques Roubaud (the guy responsible for the announcement) on Parisian math-life in the 50ties and 60ties.

It turns out that the poor Bourbakistas had very little choice if they wanted to have a beer (or coffee) after attending a seminar at the IHP.

On page 114, Roubaud writes:

“Père Plantin presided over his bar, which presided over the Lhomond/Ulm street corner. It is an obvious choice. rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie had no bars; rue d’Ulm had no bars in eyeshot either. If we emerged, as we did, on this side of the Institut Henri Poincaré (for doing so on the other side would have meant fraternizing with the Spanish and Geography students in the cafés on rue Saint-Jacques, which was out of the question), we had no choice. Café Plantin had a hegemony.”

It is unclear to me whether Plantin was once actually the name of the café, or that it’s just Roubaud’s code-word for it. At other places in the book, e.g. on pages 82 and 113, he consistently writes “Plantin”, between quotes.

Today, the café on the crossroads of rue d’Ulm (where the Ecole Normal Superieure is located) and de rue Lhomond is the Interlude Café

and here’s what Roubaud has to say about it, or rather about the situation in 1997, when the French version of his book was published:

the thing that would currently be found at the very same corner of rues Lhomond/Ulm would not be what I am here terming “Plantin”.”

So, we can only hope that the Café ‘Aux Produits Directs’ was a lot cosier, way back then.

But let us return to Grothendieck’s “What is a scheme?” story.

Now that we have a fair idea of location, what about a possible date? Here’s a suggestion: this happened on monday december 12th, 1955, and, one of the friends present must have been Cartier.

Here’s why.

The very first time the word “schéma” was uttered, in Paris, at an official seminar talk, was during the Cartan seminar of 1955/56 on algebraic geometry.

The lecturer was Claude Chevalley, and the date was december 12th 1955.


I’m fairly certain Grothendieck and Cartier attended and that Cartier was either briefed before or understood the stuff at once (btw. he gave another talk on schemes, a year later at the Chevalley seminar).

A couple of days later, on december 15th, Grothendieck sends a letter to his pal Serre (who must have been out of Paris for otherwise they’d phone each other) ending with:



Note the phrase: I am exploiting him most profitably. Yes, by asking him daft questions over a pint at Café “Plantin”

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