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From: David Spivak <dspivak@gmail.com>
To: "Joyal, André" <joyal.andre@uqam.ca>, categories@mta.ca
Subject: re: A well kept secret
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 20:09:46 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <E1NIAqH-0006Pn-Gk@mailserv.mta.ca> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <E1NFyeE-0005sO-Nx@mailserv.mta.ca>

I think we should say it publicly.  Gays get to have gay pride, why
shouldn't categorists get to have category-theory pride?  Perhaps
we've just been in the closet too long.  I think it's the right thing
to do to explain to people that this stuff is interesting and
worthwhile to us.

Worst of all would be to let the fear of shame keep us from saying
what we hold as true.  If I consider category theory to be good,
beautiful, valid math, then I shouldn't be shy about saying as much.
If someone else doesn't consider it to be "real math," he or she can
challenge me -- I'm up for that discussion.  The worst they can do is
not give me a job, but this is not an issue because I don't belong at
a place that doesn't respect category theory.

Andre is right -- category theory is probably the most important
mathematical developpement of the 20th century.

David


On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 6:13 AM, Joyal, André <joyal.andre@uqam.ca> wrote:
> Category theory is a powerful mathematical language.
> It is extremely good for organising, unifying and suggesting new directions of research.
> It is probably the most important mathematical developpement of the 20th century.
>
> But we cant say that publically.
>
> André Joyal


[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]


  parent reply	other threads:[~2009-12-08  4:09 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 46+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2009-11-29 23:31 Dangerous knowledge Joyal, André
2009-11-30 16:51 ` Mike Stay
2009-11-30 23:37   ` Dana Scott
     [not found]     ` <B3C24EA955FF0C4EA14658997CD3E25E2159B5F8@CAHIER.gst.uqam.ca>
2009-12-02  4:03       ` Dangerous times Joyal, André
2009-12-01  1:40   ` Dangerous knowledge Alex Hoffnung
2009-12-01 14:26     ` jim stasheff
2009-12-01 14:30     ` Ronnie Brown
2009-12-01  2:32   ` jim stasheff
2009-12-01 15:13   ` Alex Hoffnung
2009-12-01 16:43   ` Robert Seely
2009-12-02  2:25     ` RE : categories: " Joyal, André
2009-12-02 17:27     ` Ronnie Brown
2009-12-01  3:59 ` Dangerous ignorance Joyal, André
2009-12-01 13:56 ` Dangerous knowledge Charles Wells
2009-12-02  2:16 ` John Baez
2009-12-06 18:46   ` Vaughan Pratt
2009-12-07  2:46     ` Joyal, André
2009-12-07 13:46     ` jim stasheff
2009-12-08 19:15       ` Vaughan Pratt
2009-12-07 14:13     ` A well kept secret Joyal, André
2009-12-08 17:31       ` Steve Vickers
2009-12-09 14:18         ` Charles Wells
2009-12-10 14:49       ` Paul Taylor
2009-12-11  1:44         ` Michael Barr
2009-12-12  0:13           ` jim stasheff
2009-12-13  3:17             ` Wojtowicz, Ralph
2009-12-13  7:01           ` Vaughan Pratt
2009-12-11  1:46         ` Tom Leinster
2009-12-11  6:51         ` Michael Fourman
2009-12-11  8:36         ` Greg Meredith
2009-12-12 19:00         ` Zinovy Diskin
     [not found]       ` <e3ef1bd7ee7e9e1e1ecdb201955e18f6@PaulTaylor.EU>
2009-12-10 15:51         ` RE : " Joyal, André
2009-12-13  3:30       ` Zinovy Diskin
2009-12-07 17:18     ` Dangerous knowledge Steve Vickers
2009-12-08  4:09   ` David Spivak [this message]
2009-12-12 15:57     ` A well kept secret jim stasheff
2009-12-08  5:23   ` Robert Seely
2009-12-09 16:12     ` Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh
     [not found]   ` <7b998a320912090812x60551840r641fe9feb75efaee@mail.gmail.com>
2009-12-09 17:02     ` Robert Seely
2009-12-10 18:03   ` Dangerous_knowledge Joyal, André
2009-12-09  7:40 A well kept secret? Ronnie Brown
2009-12-14 18:41 ` Andrew Stacey
2009-12-15 20:14   ` A well kept secret Joyal, André
2009-12-13 21:46 categorical "varieties of algebras" (fwd) Michael Barr
2009-12-14 19:52 ` A well kept secret Dusko Pavlovic
2009-12-16 17:17 F William Lawvere
2009-12-22 16:39 Andree Ehresmann
2009-12-23 15:30 ` Andrew Stacey
2009-12-28 10:07   ` Reinhard Boerger

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