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I actually became aware of Grothendieck's existence because of his isolation and will to be forgotten from this world (including his plead to have his work remo

I actually became aware of Grothendieck's existence because of his isolation and will to be forgotten from this world (including his plead to have his work removed). I will never know the true reason behind his behavior but I'm a scientist myself (life sciences) and at some point of my life I started to hate the field and actually wanting to become isolated and not sharing the tiniest bit of my work with my peers. People will quickly judge you as a bad person if you don't want to give your work for the greater good of humanity and science, however, for a person that's outside the field it's easy to overlook the many things (not neccesarily related to science itself) that a scientist has to deal with. Science, like all profession, has its own demons and bad times, and how do you cope with those is a fundamental skill that you have to develop in order to be able to, well, do science. Anyway, a little off-topic but I wanted to say that I sympathize with the guy and I think that he has all the right to ask the community to stop sharing their ideas, just as anyone has all the right to come up with their own ideas and decide to share them or not.

foobarqux 12y ago
> I will never know the true reason behind his behavior I think he devoted himself to nuclear disarmament and became disillusioned by the fact that his peers did not take the issue seriously.
PavlovsCat 12y ago
I was just reminded of something I read in the exchange between Einstein and Born; I tried to figure out how to quote it all without loosing context or making a mess, but failed. It's at http://archive.org/stream/TheBornEinsteinLetters/Born-TheBornEinsteinLetters_djvu.txt http://archive.org/stream/TheBornEinsteinLetters/Born-TheBor... , search for "I enclose the text of my letter to the Reporter". Which in turn, now reminds me of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War": You’ve thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world Which maybe isn't even that much of a stretch. It stinks that things that should be purely a celebration, namely to bring new life or new knowledge into the world, are not as clear cut, but I'd never blame the people who are having such second thoughts. If we can't create and sustain an environment where thought can flow and grow freely, then we shouldn't be surprised when we reap mostly commercial mediocrity.

foobarqux 12y ago

> I will never know the true reason behind his behavior I think he devoted himself to nuclear disarmament and became disillusioned by the fact that his peers did not take the issue seriously.

PavlovsCat 12y ago

I was just reminded of something I read in the exchange between Einstein and Born; I tried to figure out how to quote it all without loosing context or making a mess, but failed. It's at http://archive.org/stream/TheBornEinsteinLetters/Born-TheBornEinsteinLetters_djvu.txt http://archive.org/stream/TheBornEinsteinLetters/Born-TheBor... , search for "I enclose the text of my letter to the Reporter". Which in turn, now reminds me of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War": You’ve thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world Which maybe isn't even that much of a stretch. It stinks that things that should be purely a celebration, namely to bring new life or new knowledge into the world, are not as clear cut, but I'd never blame the people who are having such second thoughts. If we can't create and sustain an environment where thought can flow and grow freely, then we shouldn't be surprised when we reap mostly commercial mediocrity.