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Given that the book is in English, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to think we could type it up. I'd be interested in working on such a project. My LaTeX-fu isn't very advanced, so I don't know how to format a book, but I'd be willing to devote time to typing up the body text. Anyone else think that this sounds like a good idea?
If you're going to type it up, why not type it straight into the nlab? Then it could be linked in to topics already present and be easily searchable, and others can read and correct. The nlab software can export to LaTeX and PDF so you don't lose any functionality, but gain loads. It could have its own "personal web" to keep it separate from the main nlab, but still make use of all the linking.
(Note: I'm not saying whether or not I think it is a good idea, or whether or not I think it is legal. I don't have an opinion on either issue.)
If Harry wanted to (!) I would suggest that a commentary on the pages rather than a verbatim copy retyped, would be better. For instance using the pre-existing scanned copy, read 10 pages and write a report on what YOU think they say with links to n-lab entries. That way even if you only read and commented on 50 pages it would be valuable not just to you but to others. As you would be writing your own commentary and notes on the manuscript and using the n-lab as the pad on which you are writing them, you would not be infringing copyright and there is no reason why you can not say, for instance, (I did not understand pages 16 to 19 as they had too much specialised algebraic geometry in them, so I will restart on page 20 )... or whatever. Later someone else may be able to add in new ideas, so an n'lab commentary would be feasible. (Note I am not saying that I want to do it myself! I read the manuscript when it was first sent out but for instance, if someone wanted to provide indications of where Derivateurs etc were to be found in the scanned version that might be a great service.) Andrew's idea of a PS personal page is good.
My interpretation of Grothendieck's letter is that he's upset about people reselling EGA/SGA, not the fact that the works were LaTeXed. If you take the "stronger" interpretation, distributing scans of the original is in principle just as "against the letter" as a full LaTeXed copy. I want to type it up (in proper LaTeX or somehow using Andrew's method), so I can print it out for myself to read it (free printing!). I'm sure I could do a commentary as well, but I would probably restrict it to footnotes.
AG gave permission for the distribution of PS. (See comments by Ronnie Brown in various places.) That was in days of photocopying. EGA and SGA are a different question. Do print out a copy of the scanned PS. It is worth having. The personal touches and reflections are very interesting and the type script is in general not bad and is fairly readable. Scanning is like `photocopying at a distance' so is no bother I believe even for the strongest interpretation of AGs recent letter.
Maltsiniotis has already gone through the manuscript in detail and more or less everything has been Latexed. The problem is the interpretation of that action, is it within the spirit of AGs permission or not. But doing a summary or resumé, TOC, etc, seems a good thing to do. Summarising and quoting bits is clearly fine as long as it is clear it is a quote etc.
I agree with the commentary viewpoint - as you should know Harry, the manuscript is basically like the nlab: full of attempts, false starts, backtracks and so on. Certainly if one were to go (for example)
section 2 - discussion of higher groupoids, fundamental -groupoids, and the strict -groupoids of Ronnie Brown and collaborators, but these are too strict, so AG introduces the basic framework for weak versions (see Maltsiniotis' notes on AG's definition (link)). This is followed up in sections blah, blah and blah.
and link to later papers/notes/work that actually implement the stuff, then that would be fantastically useful. I found the later sections on the schematisation of homotopy types fascinating, but couldn't figure out if this had been done, or if it could be done, and if so by whom. But guess what? I've come to realise it's basically the theory of simplicial presheaves on the Nisnevich or other algebra-like site, and one of the motivations for the theory of derivators.
And a table of contents, with brief indicators of what sits in each chapter and numbered section would be great, and something I'm up to doing, if we divide the work effectively.
I also second the notion of giving PS its own web, and then there could be a framework like Urs has for HTT.
@DavidRoberts: You can copy the HTT page and replace it with PS.
@Tim Porter: Honestly, I think that you guys who actually communicated with AG at the time would be better-suited to write commentary on it.
The DJVU copy that I have already has OCR in it, which you can extract with djvutxt
. It's almost legible in some places, and might cut out a small but significant portion of typing.
@Tim Porter: If I shoot Maltsiniotis an e-mail, is there any chance he'd let me have a copy of this LaTeXed PS?
@Harry,
certainly the actual correspondents involved in PS would be better placed to comment, but for your own good, working through it and asking questions in a public forum such as the nlab is actually better for all involved, because it forces not only you to think about it, but others as well (think of it as a PSOverflow, if you will, but hosted on the nlab and a dedicated page for each section, which comes with its own questions. Just throwing ideas into the mix here :)
There is already a TOC typed by Ag's own fair hand.
As to doing a commentary, that is a big job if you attempt everything, but for instance looking through PS and selecting a shortish section is feasible, but I do agree with David. This is the work for someone who is going to misread (excellent as misunderstandings are very useful for clarifying things) what is written, and ask questions. That is a good way to see what the manuscript contains.
I commented originally in my letters to AG and would put some version of some of that on the lab except that I will be away from Bangor for some time and so will not have access to the copies I have. (Not all the letters still exist and I feel that the personal letter question is more delicate than the PS one if one is to respect the wishes of Grothendieck.)
I find that there have been silly reactions to his letter in both directions. (See a recent comment on the café!)
I think David's style for an entry is exactly what I would suggest. It can also say page 25 line 6 undecipherable word (Help please!) or similar.
I do not really see the usefulness of having a Latexed copy. George is unlikely to just say yes, when he has agreed to to it for the Soc.Math. France (SMF) (I think) and the SMF is not too certain of its position w.r.t AGs recent letter.
For posterity, more information is now available from Maltsiniotis website. I’ve added a link at Pursuing Stacks.
There’s nothing new there though, right? Just the same links that have always been on that page.
I think some of the letters are reasonably new, for instance the Brown-Grothendieck correspondence.
Thanks!
Regarding the file upload: hm, that’s strange, for the limit seems to be set to 9.5MB here.
@scrivener
I’m having trouble getting the document to compile (as is Danny Stevenson). latexmk keeps telling me the file ’simplex’ is missing, when it is there in the folder. I may just be missing some latest package perhaps? It gives up before getting to ps6.tex and ps7.tex as well. The dvi file it generates won’t open, but I believe Danny can do that.
Latexmk: Summary of warnings:
Latex failed to resolve 4 reference(s)
Latex failed to resolve 27 citation(s)
Latexmk: Errors, so I did not complete making targets
Collected error summary (may duplicate other messages):
biber main: Command for 'biber main' gave return code 256
latex: Command for 'latex' gave return code 256
Latexmk: Use the -f option to force complete processing,
unless error was exceeding maximum runs of latex/pdflatex.
Ah, I just stoppped trying to run make in a terminal, and used SublimeText. I get errors now of the sort
./ps3.tex:385: Package pgfkeys Error: I do not know the key '/tikz/cramped' and I am going to ignore it. Perhaps you misspelled it. [ \begin{tikzcd}[cramped]]
./ps3.tex:552: Package pgfkeys Error: I do not know the key '/tikz/sep', to which you passed 'small', and I am going to ignore it. Perhaps you misspelled it. [...egin{tikzcd}[baseline=(O.base),sep=small]]
but it compiles what looks to be ok.
@DavidRoberts
Ah, thanks for trying it out! The problem with the Makefile
is that I have $pdf_mode = 1;
in my ~/.latexmkrc
, so I forgot to add -pdf
as an option to latexmk
for portability.
The cramped
option for tikzcd
should work with recent versions. What version of TeX Live are you on?
I’ve got 2014 or 2015 TeX Live. Not able to check more closely at present.
I must say the document is of the highest quality: my hat comes off for you! I’m a fan of the large margin (or gutter?), which in the current setup is good for a book layout, but less so for screen reading. Would it be possible to have the text consistently on one side to avoid the swapping from side to side? Just a suggestion.
Thanks for the feedback – I’m glad you like it! Yes, of course it would be possible (for now, try changing twoside
to oneside
and recompile). It may also be good to have a version for tablets, for A4 paper, etc., and you’re very welcome to make changes and post them (as I say in the preface).
I’ll try to see if I can host the files somewhere else where they may be easier to update. Then I can also add an optimized onesided version, and perhaps a tablet version.
Thanks! I’ll pop a copy in my Dropbox and publicise on Google+ if you don’t mind, linking here for people who might want more details.
You’re very welcome to publicize it! I’ve made a GitHub account and corresponding project. I still have to add the files, though.
Even better!
It compiles for me in TeX Live 2015. I added a one-sided A4 version to my fork, called “ebook” for want of a better name.
Thanks! That made it easy to import the files as I could just create a pull-request from your fork. I’ve fixed the margin notes in the ebook in thescrivener’s repository.
As for hosting the pdf, perhaps one option would be to simply add them to the repository so we can link to them from Pursuing Stacks? If you agree, perhaps you could make a pull-request to that effect?
EDIT: If an administrator sees this: could you please delete the tarball, now that we don’t need it anymore?
I should also say that I would really appreciate it if someone could help figure out the missing bits (that are undecipherable in the djvu). These are mentioned in the README.
Tim Porter’s copy might be more legible
As for hosting the pdf, perhaps one option would be to simply add them to the repository
The various generated PDFs should be available there.
Tim Porter’s copy might be more legible
Also I think copies of the source scans(s) should be in the repository for completeness. Was there only 1 original scan of the typescript?
If further (higher res) scans of (just the problem) pages (from different typescript copies) are made, they too should go there.
I have not looked for my copy recently so am not sure what state it is in. (It is in a box file under a bed. One of many!) I will look but warn you that even the original was faint on some pages.
I’ve now set things up to build three versions: ps-online.pdf, ps-letter.pdf, ps-a4paper. It should be doable to add further variants (such as for tablets or ebook readers).
The generated files are on the Pursuing Stacks GitHub Pages site for the repository (so the files are in the gh-pages branch). I also put the djvu-file there.
@RodMcGuire: I’ve only seen one scan (originally Ronnie Brown’s perhaps?).
@Tim_Porter: Sounds good! It would be nice to have PS as-complete-as-possible.
The typewriter that AG used did seem to need a new ribbon quite often. The other problem is the handwritten annotation. I think that Goerge Maltsiniotis worked out most of those with hep from others.
Does anyone know when the version that he has been working on will be ready?
I heard it was ready, from George, two years ago, but perhaps then it has to go through the publishing machine and that would have only started when AG’s family gave their blessing to go ahead. A 600-page book, plus letters and commentary, is not a fast-moving item.
It is my impression that there are two forthcoming volumes:
This is mentioned in Künzer’s appendix to vol. 2 containing the Grothendieck-Brown correspondence (which I’ve now added as a reference to my PS in today’s update on GitHub).
I’m of course looking very much forward to these! (And I hope you agree that my transcription serves an orthogonal purpose to theirs: mine is useful for online reading and searching, grep’ing, etc., while I’m sure theirs will have extensive editorial notes, indices, etc. and will be invaluable for institutional libraries, serious scholars, and anyone wanting a bound copy.)
And I hope you agree that my transcription serves an orthogonal purpose to theirs
Oh yes, I agree. The added value, as they say, of the commentary and letters more than justifies buying a hard copy even with a free electronic one!
I posted this on G+, btw. Getting shared around a bit.
Oh, and your breakdown into two parts makes sense, given the development of the subject material. Toën is an obvious choice for the schematization part!
Can someone make explicit what parts are not clear? (I have found my box file! but I know that some sheets are out of order.) I noted
many bits on page 7,8 (section 16bis)
Are these the bits blacked out due to being ‘highlighted’ in at least some of the scanned copies on the web? If that is the case then I may be able to help as they are not high lighted on my copy.
(It would be nice to know who I am conversing with in this. The Scrivener is hardly a name to address someone by!)
From here
16bis is the section entitled Categories as models for homotopy types. First glimpse upon an “impressive bunch” (of modelizers). The page numbering from the MS seems to restart (I’m looking at ebook.pdf) after the letter to Quillen. In the pdf files the unclear parts are clearly marked (e.g. by [?])
@Tim_Porter
As David says, the bits I couldn’t read are marked with red question marks in square brackets (sometimes with my best guess). I just updated the README file with more precise references and descriptions:
So in fact most of them are due to highlighting being scanned. Also, if you could post a picture of the bottom of p. 246 that would be a big help.
(I am sorry about your frustration, but I’d prefer not to reveal my identity in public. If we ever meet in person, I’d be happy to confide to you my work on PS over a drink!)
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