Saturday, December 10, 2005

One of the lectures I am attending, "Algebra and Algebraic Geometry from an algorithmic perspective", is, while often interesting, also insanely frustrating: The professors assistant poses the exercise problems, but does not synchronize progress with the professor (who lectures, but frequently drifts off on a tangent, leaving the students confused as to wether they are "on a tangent" or "on the lecture subject"). This puts us in the situation that we usually get the theoretical background needed to solve a given exercise sheet one to two weeks after the sheet had to be handed in. After some somewhat-fruitless long hours on the last sheet, I was advised that the proof I am looking for can be found in Grothendieck's "EGA IV". Trying to find EGA IV via google, I stumbled over Grothendieck's nonmathematical writings. They are surprisingly interesting to read:

http://acm.math.spbu.ru/RS/

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