xxx preprint archive

xxx preprint archive

[James Stasheff]

The figures are in for this years submissions to the math archive at
xxx.lanl.gov


'98 Total: 1022
AG 221; QA 191; DG 110; MP 95; GT 70; CO 54; OA 32; CV 30; PR 30; FA 24;
SP 24;
RT 19; DS 15; AT 14; AP 11; NT 11; CA 10; GR 10; LA 9; RA 7; KT 6; LO 5;
MG 5;
IG 4; SG 4; GN 3; NA 3; HO 2; SC 2; CT 1;

Is it really true that algebraic geoemtry is flourishing that much better
than algebraic topology not to mention CT = category theory!!

If you are unfamiliar with the archive, try to xxx.lanl.gov
home page or contact me.

************************************************************
	Until August 10, 1998, I am on leave from UNC 
		and am at the University of Pennsylvania

	 Jim Stasheff		jds@math.upenn.edu

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Re: xxx preprint archive

[Vaughan Pratt]

>Is it really true that algebraic geoemtry is flourishing that much better
>than algebraic topology not to mention CT = category theory!!

The number of submissions to xxx.lanl.gov seems more driven by culture
than anything else.  The following are the number of submissions for
1998 to date:

	Astrophysics: 		2225
	Condensed Matter	2272
	  + 10 more physics areas
	Mathematics (total)	932
	Computation & Language	48

Evidently very few computer scientists think to submit to xxx.lanl.gov.
I wouldn't infer from those numbers that computer science is not
flourishing or publishing.

As far as algebraic geometry vs category theory goes, the most recent
5 submissions in those respective areas span 1 week vs. 11 weeks,
suggesting that the recent rate of submissions is closer to 11:1 than
221:1.  (I'd have taken a larger sample if one had been as handy as the
most-recent-5 statistic.)

Vaughan Pratt

Re: xxx preprint archive

[John R Isbell]

[note from moderator: a response to this has been posted, but the original
was inadvertently delayed]

Jim, 
   There is something wrong (probably internal at
xxx.lanl.gov) with your table of '98 abstracts in
various branches of math. I went there (for the
first time, thanks for the address) and clicked
on Category Theory and found 5 abstracts. Those
were all from the 3 months preceding this month,
so I thought there should be more in '98. I did
a search for the words 'category theory',
limited to '98, and got 8 abstracts. However,
more than half of those were classified,
primarily, as Quantum Groups or something. So
God only knows how many CT's there are in lanl
in '98, but not less than 5.
     John

Re: xxx preprint archive

[Greg Kuperberg]

> Jim, 
>    There is something wrong (probably internal at
> xxx.lanl.gov) with your table of '98 abstracts in
> various branches of math. I went there (for the
> first time, thanks for the address) and clicked
> on Category Theory and found 5 abstracts. Those
> were all from the 3 months preceding this month,
> so I thought there should be more in '98. I did
> a search for the words 'category theory',
> limited to '98, and got 8 abstracts. However,
> more than half of those were classified,
> primarily, as Quantum Groups or something. So
> God only knows how many CT's there are in lanl
> in '98, but not less than 5.

There is 1 with primary category CT and 7 cross-listed into CT in
1998.  A second CT paper dated 1995 is from the migration of the MSRI
preprint series.  Jim's table, which was forwarded from xxx staff,
counts only primary submissions, to avoid double-counting.  You can get a
clear picture at

    http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/math.CT

I should say that the main consequences so far of creating CT has been
a lot of theorizing about the categories in the xxx mathematics archive.
Perhaps that's a natural response from category theorists, but it's not
what the people who created CT had in mind.

				Greg

Re: xxx preprint archive

[Sjoerd Erik CRANS]

James Stasheff <jds@math.upenn.edu> wrote:

> The figures are in for this years submissions to the math archive at
> xxx.lanl.gov
> 
> 
> '98 Total: 1022
> AG 221; QA 191; DG 110; MP 95; GT 70; CO 54; OA 32; CV 30; PR 30; FA 24;
> SP 24;
> RT 19; DS 15; AT 14; AP 11; NT 11; CA 10; GR 10; LA 9; RA 7; KT 6; LO 5;
> MG 5;
> IG 4; SG 4; GN 3; NA 3; HO 2; SC 2; CT 1;
> 
> Is it really true that algebraic geoemtry is flourishing that much better
> than algebraic topology not to mention CT = category theory!!

Although this might indeed well be true, isn't is a bit too simplistic to
measure the succes of a subject this way?

I think that for a more balanced view it is useful to consider the
following points:
1. CT is a new subject class, and naturally has lower traffic than the
well established ones,
2. There are cross references to CT from other classes,
3. There are papers containing some category theory classified under
other classes; some of these could well have been classified CT (remember
that the author determines the subject class!),
4. The position of Category Theory in Mathematics is quite different from
Algebraic Geometry's (more marginal??),
5. The categorical community is relatively small, so categorists might
be thinking they don't need a preprint archive,
6. Category Theory is less "time-sensitive" than other subjects, so
categorists don't rush off to get their preprints time-stamped (as I
have heard rumoured is the practice among (mathematical) physicists),
7. And there's the compulsory-tex-source-submission issue ...

Sjoerd Crans
School of MPCE
Macquarie University
NSW 2109
Australia
email: scrans@mpce.mq.edu.au