Re: Bourbaki and Categories

[jim stasheff <jds@math.upenn.edu>]

I would just add or emphasize if implicit here one thought:

a view into the often very human process of interaction
viz. several of the anecdotes about `life with Bott' at
his recent memorial conference

jim



Meredith Gregory wrote:
> All,
>
> i have been utterly delighted by this conversation. What i can't help but
> think about, however, is that with the internet we have a different sort of
> opportunity. Let me try to describe it.
>
>    - What is missing in most mathematical presentations is a view into the
>    often very human and very messy process of getting to the presentation. What
>    young mathematicians need -- in my view -- is a view of mathematicians doing
>    mathematics. They need to see very top-down orientations rubbing elbows with
>    very bottoms-up orientations. They need to see highly inventive, unifying
>    viewpoints come up against skeptical viewpoints armed with vast arrays of
>    counter-examples. They need to see people desperately trying to organize
>    while others are desperately trying to de-construct. This is where the life
>    of mathematics is. This is how people bring mathematics to life.
>    - With the internet we have the opportunity to record not just the final
>    artifact, tractate or wiki, but the process. Ever since Andre Joyal
>    mentioned a 2nd life for Bourbaki i can't stop thinking about a Bourbaki
>    colloquium run in Second Life <http://secondlife.com/> -- so that
>    whatever the outcome of a given process is in terms of artifact, people can
>    go back and look at the process, itself. They can see how people argued and
>    counter-argued. There is getting to be a precendent for this, from
>    Harvard<http://www.joystiq.com/2006/09/12/harvard-class-invades-second-life/>to
>    Intel <http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/articles/eng/1283.htm>, to run
>    serious technical conversation in Second Life.
>
> Perhaps this idea is too far out, but i would urge those who seriously
> consider a second life for Bourbaki to remember to record the living part as
> well as the outcome. After all, looking over the last many emails to
> categories so much of it is an attempt to recover process -- how things got
> to be where they are.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> --greg
>