Pierre Deligne - The Abel Prize interview 2013

0:09 Plans for Abel Prize funds incl. to Higher School of Economics
3:26 Importance of awards, prizes
4:46 The value of the multi-faceted threads of the Abel Prize
5:10 Value of good high school teachers
5:27 Early mathematical life
6:39 Given Bourbaki's Set Theory to read as 14yo
8:41 Jacques Tits
9:20 Formal education
9:50 Mathematical experimentation at school
10:28 Value of geometry when learning esp. proof-making
12:14 Jacques Tits incl. story about an absence from class
13:10 Value of symmetry when proving
14:09 Jacques Tits
15:00 First mention of Grothendieck
15:40 Deligne's fields of study in laymen's terms: esp. Algebraic Geometry
21:47 Grothendieck: his kindness, asking "stupid" questions OK
25:10 Serre (comparisons with Grothendieck)
26:55 Weil Conjectures
30:45 Grothendieck's program as a hindrance to proving Weil's 3rd conjecture
32:27 G. filling the valley vs. D. building a suspension bridge
33:10 Reaction of Serre to Deligne's proof
33:51 Ideas for the proof (Lefschetz)
37:04 Liked proofs: mixed Hodge structures, using motives
39:12 Learning algebraic geometry harder (than other fields)
40:05 Langlands program
41:49 Ways of working; not much teaching, full-time researcher
42:18 Value of 1:1 teaching
43:11 Leaving IHES, moving to IAS; comparing institutions
45:30 Contact with Russian mathematics
46:12 Beautiful culture of Russian math.
46:56 State of Russian math. now
47:30 Stronger links between university and secondary education in Russia
49:17 Being first
50:00 Working style: big picture first, which tools
51:54 Guessing what is true, having pictures in mind
52:30 Thinking in pictures
54:19 The vallue of good conjectures or dreams valuable
55:39 Writing letters ("often a letter to myself")
58:09 Poincare moments?
59:06 Work style changed over time? imagination vs. technique
1:00:40 Significant work for the future for the profession
1:01:38 Better understanding of motives
1:02:09 Langlands program
1:02:20 Unexpected conjectures of physicists
1:04:00 Hodge Conjecture
1:04:44 Other interests: nature, must do some work, cycling
1:06:03 Building igloos
1:06:43 Story about making igloos as a child

Read the full interview in Notices of the American Mathematical Society: https://www.ams.org/notices/201402/rn...

The 2013 Abel Prize interview with Pierre Deligne
Interviewed by mathematicians Martin Raussen og Christian Skau.
Produced by UniMedia.