From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/2395 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jpdonaly@aol.com Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Generalized Yoneda Lemma (from Pat Donaly) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 15:52:41 EDT Message-ID: <1e.15927aee.2c470709@aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241018631 3936 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:23:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:23:51 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Jul 17 11:53:59 2003 -0300 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 11:53:59 -0300 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.10) id 19dA8k-0002kI-00 for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 17 Jul 2003 11:53:50 -0300 Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 23 Original-Lines: 48 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:2395 Archived-At: To all category theorists: Some time ago I noticed a generalization of the Yoneda Lemma which runs as follows: As in the classical version, one begins with a nonvoid category A and a pair of function-valued bifunctors on the product of the following categories: The first is the category of function-valued natural transformations on A, and the second is A itself. One of the bifunctors is the evaluation functor (t,a)-->t(a), where t is a function-valued natural transformation on A, and a is an A-morphism. Call this bifunctor E. The other bifunctor Y is described as an iterated Yoneda embedding which has been unpartialled, and the classical Yoneda Lemma states that Y is naturally isomorphic to E. Also, a particular isomorphism is specified, at least on objects. But the situation is clarified by observing that there is a bijective parameterization of the homset H of natural transformations which entwine Y with E by what has to be called the center of A, that is, by the commutative monoid C of natural transformations (under (indifferently) pointwise or function composition) which entwine the identity functor on A with itself. This parameterization sends natural isomorphisms to natural isomorphisms, and, applying it to the identity functor on A gives the classical Yoneda Lemma, but, of course, there might be other isomorphisms in C, hence other isomorphisms of Y with E. The parameterization formula from the center C into the homset H is not particularly enlightening, but its inverse is literally the formula which expresses an adjunctional unit in terms of its adjunction (regarded as a function-valued natural bitransformation). In fact, this development all comes out of the observation that the adjunctional unit formula extends to a concept which is well beyond the idea of an adjunction, and this generalized unit concept even includes naturality in a certain sense. Thus one nearly has naturality, the Yoneda Lemma, the adjunctional unit concept and the idea of the center of a category all together in one basket. It is my personal opinion that these facts are most easily seen by working with natural transformations in terms of their fully extended entwining functions (so that "horizontal" composition is function composition and "vertical" composition is pointwise composition), but ruthless experience tells me that someone who is not familiar with the journal literature should take care not to underestimate a priori the mysterious capabilities of diagrammers, who, after all, created category theory in the first place. Moreover, I have no way to assess the value of this generalization in terms of the classical applications of the Yoneda Lemma, as in, say, the calculation of characteristic classes. Thus I am interested in getting directions to relevant portions of the literature, and would someone point out any applications of this generalized Yoneda Lemma? Pat Donaly