“For me, IHES was Grothendieck”

Stéphane Deligeorges: Can you tell us how you became one of the first visitors to IHES?

Heisuke Hironaka: During the 1958–1959 academic year, Alexander Grothendieck came to give a lecture at Harvard in Massachusetts, where I was studying, and that’s when I met him for the first time. Just before he left, he invited me to visit him at this new institute, IHES, and I accepted. So I came to Paris for the first time in December 1959. At that time, the Institute was located at 5 Rond-point Bugeaud, near Étoile, in an old museum where the Institute occupied the first floor. There were Léon Motchane, the director, Mademoiselle Rolland, his secretary, and two professors, Grothendieck and Jean Dieudonné.

All this was quite impressive, given that, at that time, Japan was still in the midst of reconstruction following the devastation of the Second World War, and there was nothing comparable in our country. Mathematics wasn’t very active, and many young researchers came to France to find a stimulating atmosphere for discussion. They often received ‘grants’ and lived at the Cité Universitaire or the Maison du Japon. By comparison, I was luckier as I was better paid by the Institute and could live in a comfortable hotel… Moreover, the fact that the IHES was a privately funded institution lent a certain “special” and privileged quality to the atmosphere and the seminars.

S. D.: What impression did Grothendieck make on you when you met him at Harvard and then in Paris?

H. H.: On both occasions, he was giving seminars on the theory of ‘schemes’ and, as you know, he possessed remarkable intellectual vigour. He truly laid new foundations for Algebraic Geometry, which was and remains my field of research. He never wore shoes, had his head completely shaved, and during discussions he was brilliant and very quick-witted. His comments were often quite critical of others, but he posed new and fascinating problems. He was a man of action! For me, IHES was Grothendieck.

Alongside him were also Laurent Schwartz, Jean-Pierre Serre and Jean Dieudonné, almost all of whom I had already met at Harvard.

S. D.: Have you been back to the Institute since then?

H. H.: Of course, and many times over. The second time I went, the IHES had moved to Bures-sur-Yvette and had already grown in stature. Today, it is an institution that virtually all mathematicians in Japan are familiar with, either because they have visited it or because they have heard of it. I hope to return there soon, in fact.