Deformations of Algebraic Schemes

In one sense, deformation theory is as old as algebraic geometry itself: this is because all algebro-geometric objects can be “deformed” by suitably varying the coef?cients of their de?ning equations, and this has of course always been known by the classical geometers. Nevertheless, a correct understanding of what “deforming” means leads into the technically most dif?cult parts of our discipline. It is fair to say that such technical obstacles have had a vast impact on the crisis of the classica