This Wikipedia of Algebraic Geometry Will Forever Be Incomplete. That’s the Point. – Columbia University

But the theory of algebraic stacks was never spelled out as comprehensively as Grothendieck had done with schemes. This is the void that de Jong stepped in to fill in 2008. I thought it would be good to collect all these results in one place so theyd be easier to reference, he said.

Eleven years later, as de Jong typed in his last equation, he realized how much more was left to be done. Mistakes to fix. Definitions to align. Concepts to add and link. To some extent, its just what I do now, he said. I sort of dont know how to stop.

The enormity of the task is one factor fueling de Jongs obsession. At 7,300 pages, the project still covers just half of the existing scholarship on algebraic stacks. The immediacy of online publishing is another motivating factor. Thanks tohyperlinks and the cloud, the Stacks Project is a living document that requires updates and corrections in the way plants require water and sunlight.

The Stacks Project is not static because algebraic geometry is not static, said Kedlaya, a former student of de Jongs. The subject continues to expand, even at a foundational level. Theres constantly new material to incorporate, and this system is built to expand indefinitely.

Link:
This Wikipedia of Algebraic Geometry Will Forever Be Incomplete. That's the Point. - Columbia University

Related Posts

Comments are closed.