Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969

Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969

[Colin McLarty]

I am interested in any stories about the 1969 Summer Institute at
Bowdoin.  Who was there?

In particular,the Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar IV (SLN 137)
has a humor piece written as a ``final exam'' for the Institute.  It is
signed ``Phreilambud.''  Who is this?  I can make it up out of various
people's names, but I don't know who was there.

Colin

Re: Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969

[John MacDonald]

This is from memory so there could be some inaccuracies.

I first met John Isbell there since I shared office space with him. He
said that he saw no need to get a room since he could just sleep in the
office.

Peter Freyd's daughters babysat my daughter Eleanor, aged 2, and son
Lauchlin, aged 2 months and my first wife Dorinne often spoke with Pam.

Phreilambud included David Eisenbud for sure, and possibly Eilenberg,
Freyd and others.

John

On Sun, 2 Oct 2005, Colin McLarty wrote:

> I am interested in any stories about the 1969 Summer Institute at
> Bowdoin.  Who was there?
>
> In particular,the Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar IV (SLN 137)
> has a humor piece written as a ``final exam'' for the Institute.  It is
> signed ``Phreilambud.''  Who is this?  I can make it up out of various
> people's names, but I don't know who was there.
>
> Colin
>
>
>

Re: Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969

[David Ellerman]

I attended the Bowdoin Summer Seminar as a 2nd year math grad student with
some training in math logic and none in category theory. MacLane gave the
principal lectures (later developed into his CWM) and others (Eilenberg,
Isbell) weighed in with lectures on special topics.  A few points stick in
memory. For instance, Eilenberg lectured on his categorical treatment of
abstract machine theory. At one point he was analyzing the words generated
by a set of symbols A, and he derived that I+A+A^2+... = [I-A]^-1 with such
flourish that a spontaneous applause broke out in the audience. Otherwise,
Eilenberg along with Lawvere and Tierney played poker and smoked cigars with
great relish. In one lecture on some of Linton's results, MacLane presented
a picture of an Australian road sign for the town of "Colinton" which
MacLane said was named after Linton's antipodal dual. Foreign (i.e.,
non-North-American) category theorists were represented by (at least)
Eduardo Dubuc and Sabah Fakir. I don't know about "Phreilambud" but I
suspect the "bud" is from Eisenbud who mentions in his Preface to MacLane's
mathematical autobiography that Bowdoin was the only time he saw "Saunders
and Sammy" together and that all gathered around when they discussed the
origins of the subject one evening after dinner.

These were early days in the so-called 'foundations' debate with set theory
where the latter was represented at Bowdoin by Feferman. I suspect that many
of the arguments expressed in Feferman's 1977 article (which Colin recently
described as "the most sustained critique of categorical foundations to
date" [Phil. Math. 2005]) were hammered out at Bowdoin.

The last session of the seminar was called the "prayer meeting" where
various people were asked to "let their hair down" and talk informally about
the future of CT and foundations. I was the symbolic grad student asked to
say a few words and I was so nervous I don't remember what the others said!
I made a few (certainly elementary and perhaps incoherent) remarks on the
difference between sets as (non-self-participating) universals for a
property in contrast with the (self-participating) universals (UMPs) of CT
which in some sense exemplify the property they represent (ideas developed
years later in an article on "concrete universals" and CT in Erkenntnis
1988).

The final social event was a feast of Maine lobsters at a nearby beach
presided over by MacLane and Dorothy. As we were devouring our lobsters, I
particularly remember MacLane shouting out to all assembled: "Don't eat the
green stuff, don't eat the green stuff!" (a reference to lower part of the
lobster's alimentary canal).
_____________________
David Ellerman

Visiting Scholar
University of California at Riverside

Mailing address:
4044 Mt Vernon Ave
Riverside, CA 92507

Email: david@ellerman.org
Webpage: www.ellerman.org

View my research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=294049

----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin McLarty" <colin.mclarty@case.edu>
To: <categories@mta.ca>
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2005 8:00 PM
Subject: categories: Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969


>I am interested in any stories about the 1969 Summer Institute at
> Bowdoin.  Who was there?
>
> In particular,the Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar IV (SLN 137)
> has a humor piece written as a ``final exam'' for the Institute.  It is
> signed ``Phreilambud.''  Who is this?  I can make it up out of various
> people's names, but I don't know who was there.
>
> Colin
>

Re: Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969

[Ross Street]

 > a picture of an Australian road sign for the town of "Colinton" which
 > MacLane said was named after Linton's antipodal dual. Foreign (i.e.,
 > non-North-American) category theorists were represented by (at least)
 > Eduardo Dubuc and Sabah Fakir.

Presumably I was considered North American at the time as the Bowdoin
Seminar came between a postdoc at U Illinois (Champ-Urb) and a assistant
professorship at Tulane. Sammy commented that I began the summer as an
Australian and ended up an all American boy. Sammy was prone to
exaggeration.

I have wonderful memories of that summer:

     Mac  Lane's incredible lectures (every morning -- 2 hours I
     think -- for the whole summer),
     freezing water at the beach although the weather was hot,
     the "pro-seminars" run by new postdocs that were organized after
     Mac Lane's first lecture,
     becoming marooned when the tide came in and Eduardo Dubuc (up to
     his chest in water) carried Joan Machez (sp?) while I supported her
     broken leg in its cast,
     the tall dormitory with 16 bedrooms per level and Sammy at the
     top in the penthouse,
     that clam and lobster bake,
     buying beer at the supermarket where the under-aged checkout
     girl had to get an older person to punch in the price of the beer!

     and many other things mathematical and non.

Mac Lane, Dubuc, Duskin and I moved down to Tulane after that for its
"Year on Category Theory 1969-70".

--Ross

Re: Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969

[Robert J. MacG. Dawson]

David Ellerman wrote:

> The final social event was a feast of Maine lobsters at a nearby beach
> presided over by MacLane and Dorothy. As we were devouring our lobsters, I
> particularly remember MacLane shouting out to all assembled: "Don't eat the
> green stuff, don't eat the green stuff!" (a reference to lower part of the
> lobster's alimentary canal).

	The "green stuff" is not the lower part of the lobster's alimentary
canal (a barely visible black "string"); it is the lobster's liver.
While the texture & flavor take more getting used to than those of the
white meat, the liver (known   slightly confusingly as "tomalley") is
perfectly wholesome, and should certainly be eaten. So, of course,
should the immature eggs (bright red & known as "coral") if present.

	-Robert Dawson

Re: Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969

[Joseph Goguen]

Hi Colin,

I was there as a freshly minted PhD about to go to my first
academic job at University of Chicago.  What i most vividly
remember was Eilenberg, sitting in the center near the front,
constantly asking smart questions, which did not necessarily
help the speaker; and in particular, of course, i remember
this during my talk on automata and recursion in cartesian
closed categories.  Frankly, i was a bit shocked at the level
of competitiveness that i felt in the institute, no doubt my
naivety showing, after spending laid back years at Berkeley.

Joseph Goguen


> From: Colin McLarty <colin.mclarty@case.edu>
> Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 23:00:18 -0400
> Content-Language: en
> Content-Disposition: inline
> Precedence: bulk
> X-Greylisting: NO DELAY (Relay+Sender autoqualified);
> 	processed by UCSD_GL-v2.1 on mailbox6.ucsd.edu;
> 	Mon, 03 October 2005 07:27:33 -0700 (PDT)
> X-Spam-Level: Level
> X-Spamscanner: mailbox6.ucsd.edu  (v1.6 Aug  4 2005 15:27:38, -2.6/5.0 3.0.4)
> X-MailScanner: PASSED (v1.2.8 22150 j93ERW3p026939 mailbox6.ucsd.edu)
> X-Spam-Flag: Spam NO
> X-Scanned-By: milter-spamc/0.15.245 (fast.ucsd.edu [132.239.15.4]); pass=YES; Mon, 03 Oct 2005 07:27:36 -0700
> X-Spam-Status: NO, hits=-0.80 required=5.00
>
> I am interested in any stories about the 1969 Summer Institute at
> Bowdoin.  Who was there?
>
> In particular,the Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar IV (SLN 137)
> has a humor piece written as a ``final exam'' for the Institute.  It is
> signed ``Phreilambud.''  Who is this?  I can make it up out of various
> people's names, but I don't know who was there.
>
> Colin
>

Re: Phreilambud at Bowdoin 1969

[Peter Freyd]

``Phreilambud'' was written by me, a young student named Lambert who
disappeared, I think, from mathematics and David Eisenbud, now paying
for his sins as head of MSRI (Berkeley).
   Peter