RE : A well kept secret

["Joyal, André" <joyal.andre@uqam.ca>]

Dear Paul,

I thank you very much for your insightful comments.

>Anybody in my generation or younger can cite lots of examples of "well known" 
> "folklore" results that were supposedly discovered in the 1970s but have 
> never been written up.  

You are completely right. 
I have my share of responsabilities here.
I will not try to explain what happened, because it may be counterproductive.
I apologise to you and to everyone who may have suffered from not getting 
access to the information they wanted from me.
I am planning to correct the problem by publishing all my "secret" notes, 
papers and books during 2010, starting this December. 

Best, 
André



-------- Message d'origine--------
De: Paul Taylor [mailto:pt09@PaulTaylor.EU]
Date: jeu. 10/12/2009 09:49
À: categories list
Cc: Joyal, André
Objet : A well kept secret
 
I'm not too sure what the context was, but Andre' Joyal said on 7 
December,

 > Category theory is a powerful mathematical language.  It is extremely 
good
 > for organising, unifying and suggesting new directions of research.

I completely agree.

 > It is probably the most important mathematical developpement of
 > the 20th century.

It is too early to tell.

[Comment attributed to Zhou Enlai (Chinese Communist leader 1949-76)
when asked his opinion of the French Revolution.]

 > But we cant say that publically.

I think we should be wary of slapping ourselves on the back too much.

The fact is that category theory alienated the rest of the mathematical
world.   Since the damage had been done in the 1970s, well before my 
time,
I have never managed to work out how this happenned, or who was 
responsible.


...



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