On the matroid stratification of Grassmann varieties, specialization of coordinates, and a problem of N. White (Q2277466)

The author constructs a counterexample for the following psoblem of \textit{N. White} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 29, 168-175 (1980)], on representable matroids. Given two representable matroids F and G with \(F\leq G\) in the weak map order, does every coordinatization of G specialize to a coordinatization of F. The author's approach is based on the matroid stratification of the complex Grassmann variety \(G_{n,d}\) recently studied by \textit{I. M. Gelfand}, \textit{R. M. Goresky}, \textit{R. D. MacPherson} and \textit{V. Serganova} [Adv. Math. 63, 301-316 (1987; Zbl 0622.57014)].