From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/4928 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Hasse Riemann Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Famous unsolved problems in ordinary category theory Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 02:42:52 +0000 Message-ID: Reply-To: Hasse Riemann NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1244224269 13212 80.91.229.12 (5 Jun 2009 17:51:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 17:51:09 +0000 (UTC) To: Category mailing list Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Fri Jun 05 19:51:07 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1MCdZG-0001VT-Tg for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:51:03 +0200 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1MCcql-0007an-Kt for categories-list@mta.ca; Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:05:03 -0300 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:4928 Archived-At: =20 Dear Ronnie =20 This is what stuck with me from the e-mail =20 > One aim of mathematics is understanding=2C making difficult things easy= =2C > seeing why something is true. Thus improved exposition is an important pa= rt > of the progress of mathematics (even if this is ignored by Research > Assessment Exercises).=20 =20 Indeed they don't teach you this at the university=2C but somehow i always = knew it. It was obvious from the start=2C then i had to resist everyone trying to te= ll me otherwise. I am glad that there are other who see this as well. =20 > Grothendieck wrote to me in 1982: `The introduction of the cipher 0 or th= e > group concept was general nonsense too=2C and mathematics was more or les= s > stagnating for thousands of years because nobody was around to take such > childish steps ...'. =20 I like this quote since i like structuralizing mathematics. Something to think about if you want to take the next step. Fill in the void with a precise mathematical void. =20 Best regards Rafael Borowiecki [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]