From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/3251 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Vaughan Pratt Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: [Fwd: du Sautoy] Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 15:53:27 -0700 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241019184 7909 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:33:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:33:04 +0000 (UTC) To: Categories List Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Apr 17 09:39:38 2006 -0300 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 09:39:38 -0300 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.52) id 1FVSuJ-0002hg-Sp for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 17 Apr 2006 09:32:43 -0300 Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 49 Original-Lines: 32 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:3251 Archived-At: > The story of the primes is one of the sagas that I have found can pull > young people on to the mathematical bandwagon. They are the building > blocks of all numbers. And as you play with them, they very soon draw you > into one of our biggest mathematical mystery stories. > Marcus du Sautoy is professor of mathematics at Oxford University and > author of The Music of the Primes Challenge would appear to be a key ingredient here. To continue the recent thread on bringing categories to the masses, is there a short list of such sagas whose challenges big and small might pull young people on to the category theory bandwagon? Abelian categories? Toposes? Monads? Synthetic differential geometry? n-categories? All would seem to be fairly easily accessed from very accessible parts of respectively topology (coffee cups, Betti numbers), constructive logic (Brouwer vs. Hilbert, proofs as programs), number systems (Galois and unsolvability by radicals), analysis (infinitesimals according to Cauchy, Weierstrass, Robinson, Kock), and cosmology (the organization of strings). What other challenges, big and small, met and unmet, might young people find a compelling lead-in to categorical thinking? In all these areas, bringing the novice to the mathematics is surely a less promising strategy than bringing the mathematics to the novice. If home delivery can radicalize the pizza business, why can't it do the same for category theory? Vaughan Pratt