The continuing silence of Bourbaki. -- An interview with Pierre Cartier, June 18, 1997
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: The continuing silence of Bourbaki. -- An interview with Pierre Cartier, June 18, 1997
zbMATH Open document ID: 0915.01010
DOI: 10.1007/BF03024395
author: Marjorie Senechal
published in: The Mathematical Intelligencer
publication date: 1999-07-05T00:00:00Z
review text: French mathematician Pierre Cartier (born 1932) belonged to the ``third generation'' of members of Bourbaki which was, according to Cartier ``less and less dogmatic since we did not have to prove anything'', after French mathematics bad been remodeled in the 1950s due to the overwhelming influence of Bourbaki. Cartier compares the prevailing ideology of Bourbaki in the two first generations to other manifestations of the ``Zeitgeist'', i.e., dogmatic ideology in the 20th century such as in art or politics when ``it was in the people's minds that we could reach a final solution''. The ``continuing silence of Bourbaki'', in particular the fact that the French group of mathematicians has not published anything as a collective for fifteen years, Cartier attributes partly to legal battles with a publisher, partly to the invasion of new styles into mathematics such as the one which was brought to the West by Russian mathematicians.
reviewed by: Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A60
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A70
zbMATH DE Number: 1233990
zbMATH Keywords: Bourbaki
zbMATH Keywords: decline of dogmatic spirit in mathematics
MaRDI profile type: Publication
cites work: Nicholas Bourbaki, collective mathematician. An interview with Claude Chevalley
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1233990