From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/1165 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: cxm7@po.cwru.edu (Colin McLarty) Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Mac Lane's inclusions Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 13:32:06 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <199907151732.NAA17230@babar.INS.CWRU.Edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241017610 29777 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:06:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:06:50 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: cat-dist Fri Jul 16 16:14:45 1999 Original-Received: (from Majordom@localhost) by mailserv.mta.ca (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA13626 for categories-list; Fri, 16 Jul 1999 14:25:17 -0300 (ADT) X-Authentication-Warning: mailserv.mta.ca: Majordom set sender to cat-dist@mta.ca using -f X-Sender: cxm7@pop.cwru.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Original-Lines: 64 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:1165 Archived-At: This note gives an alternative characterization of "inclusions" in Mac Lane's sense; and proves every category with selected monics is equivalent to one with "inclusions". Some of it may have been known before and if so I would appreciate references. In a circular letter Saunders Mac Lane has suggested paying attention to "inclusions" in categorical set theory. The main questions about this have general categorical answers as follows. A category has "selected monics" if for each object C, each equivalence class of monics to C has one selected representative. The selected monics are called "inclusions" if whenever C'>->C and C">->C' are selected, the composite C">->C is also selected. The following alternative characterization motivates the construction in the next theorem but is not actually used to prove it. Given monics i and j to a single object, with i->C and j:J>->C are selected, and selected monics compose. The transition h must have some selected equivalent k:K>->J, and so jk is selected and equivalent to i, which implies jk=i and k=h so h is selected. Conversely suppose h:I>->J and j:J>->C are selected and transition monics between selected monics are selected. Then jh:I>->C has some selected equivalent m and for some iso g we have jhg=m. Thus hg is transition monic between the selected m and j, and so hg is selected. But hg is also equivalent to the selected h so hg=h and g is an identity. Thus jh=m is selected. In any topos with selected pullbacks we have selected monics, since for any equivalence class of monics we can take the selected pullback of "true" along the characteristic arrow. These need not be inclusions. However, we have: Theorem: Any category A with selected monics is equivalent to a category AI with inclusions. Proof: Let the objects of AI be the selected monics C>->B of A. An AI arrow from C'>->B' to C>->B is simply an A arrow C'-->C. That is, AI arrows ignore the monics and just look at the domains. Obviously AI is equivalent to A and an arrow is monic in AI iff it is monic in A. As the selected monics to an AI object C>->B we take those AI monics h h:C'>-------->C v v | | | | v v B = B which lie over the same B and make the triangle commute in A. Clearly these compose, and each monic to C>->B in AI is equivalent to exactly one of these. In particular, given any axiomatic theory of a topos with selected pullbacks: if the axioms are preserved by equivalence, then we can consistently add the assumption of inclusions. We can assume selected monics compose. Of course it remains to actually use this assumption to secure the advantages that Saunders sees for it.