An elementary and constructive proof of Grothendieck's generic freeness lemma

Abstract

We present a new and direct proof of Grothendieck's generic freeness lemma in its general form. Unlike the previously published proofs, it does not proceed in a series of reduction steps and is fully constructive, not using the axiom of choice or even the law of excluded middle. It was found by unwinding the result of a general topos-theoretic technique.