Nicolas Bourbaki: Encyclopedia II - Nicolas Bourbaki - Dieudonné as speaker for Bourbaki

Nicolas Bourbaki - Dieudonné as speaker for Bourbaki

Public discussion of, and justification for, Bourbaki's thoughts has in general been through Jean Dieudonné, who initially was the 'scribe' of the group, writing under his own name. In a survey of le choix bourbachique written in 1977, he didn't shy away from a hierarchical development of the 'important' mathematics of the time.

He also wrote extensively under his own name: nine volumes on analysis, perhaps in belated fulfilment of the original project or pretext; and also on other topics mostly connected with algebraic geometry. While Dieudonné could reasonably speak on Bourbaki's encyclopedic tendency, and tradition (after innumerable frank tais-toi Dieudonné! remarks at the meetings), it may be doubted whether all others agreed with him about mathematical writing and research. In particular Serre has often criticised the way the Bourbaki works were written, and has championed in France greater attention to problem-solving, within number theory especially, not an area treated in the main Bourbaki texts.

Dieudonné stated the view that most workers in mathematics were doing ground-clearing work, in order that a future Riemann could find the way ahead intuitively open. He pointed to the way axiomatic method can be used as a tool for problem-solving, for example by Alexander Grothendieck. Others found him too close to Grothendieck to be an unbiased observer. Comments in Pal Turán's 1970 speech on the award of a Fields Medal to Alan Baker about theory-building and problem-solving were a reply from the traditionalist camp at the next opportunity, Grothendieck having received a Fields Medal in absentia in 1966 and the awards being every four years.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dieudonné as speaker for Bourbaki", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki