From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/5334 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Spivak Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: re: A well kept secret Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 20:09:46 -0800 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: David Spivak 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 1260321829 17063 80.91.229.12 (9 Dec 2009 01:23:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 01:23:49 +0000 (UTC) To: =?ISO-8859-1?B?Sm95YWwsIEFuZHLp?= , Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Wed Dec 09 02:23:42 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 1NIBHJ-0002bZ-Ro for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:23:42 +0100 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1NIAqH-0006Pn-Gk for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:55:45 -0400 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:5334 Archived-At: 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, Andr=E9 wrote: > Category theory is a powerful mathematical language. > It is extremely good for organising, unifying and suggesting new directio= ns of research. > It is probably the most important mathematical developpement of the 20th = century. > > But we cant say that publically. > > Andr=E9 Joyal [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]