From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/3661 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Zinovy Diskin" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: dagger vs involutive Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 14:37:30 -0500 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241019441 9668 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:37:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:37:21 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Mar 6 21:39:55 2007 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:39:55 -0400 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1HOkxh-0001OS-0E for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:29:01 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 15 Original-Lines: 39 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:3661 Archived-At: On 3/5/07, tholen@mathstat.yorku.ca wrote: > > Here is an outsider's view on the debate which is all about a > formalistic (not to say meaningless) vs a meaningful name. There seem > to be only very few occasions in mathematics when the formalistic name > won, C*-algebras being a prominent example. In category theory, one is why only few? Recall the Poisson bracket, or Dirac's delta-function, or quaternions (though as a shorthand for 4D complex number it's probably more meaningful than triples) or, say, derivative, which is a basic notion in calculus yet is, in fact, quite a formalistic name. If to talk about general tendencies, then it seems the winner would be a formalistic term (unfortunately). Consider a competition between a meaningful yet too long, or hard to pronounce, or not smooth in some sense term and a meaningless yet short and energetic term, who would win? Many attempts to make terminology and notation in a particular domain entirely consistent failed as soon as they went beyond some reasonable level of consistency. Zinovy Diskin And aren't left-right adjoints, vertical-horizontal morphisms in fibrations of purely typographical ("blackboardial") origin? reminded of the hot debate of triples vs monads of the 60s and 70s. I > guess that at the time of the "Zurich triple book" (SLNM 80) most > people would have predicted that triples had already won the race. Mac > Lane's book CWM appeared only 2 or 3 years later, after a vast amount > of literature on triples. But he consistently used the meaningful name > monad, even though (as far as I know) he had never directly published > on the subject. You be the judge who won! > > Walter Tholen. > > >