From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/5393 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Colin McLarty Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: RE: A well kept secret? Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:38:12 -0500 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: Colin McLarty 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 1261356791 24218 80.91.229.12 (21 Dec 2009 00:53:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:53:11 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Mon Dec 21 01:53:04 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 1NMWWE-0003Ke-7Y for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:53:02 +0100 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1NMW2J-0002jr-5o for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:22:07 -0400 In-Reply-To: Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:5393 Archived-At: 2009/12/19 Larry Harper : mentions > When I heard of > Serge Langs's characterization of CT as "abstract nonsense" it reinforced > what I already thought (See however, > > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 http://en.wikipedia.o= rg/wiki/Abstract_nonsense > > which does not mention Serge Lang in the body of the article). Lang's Algebra uses "abstract nonsense" to describe his favorite kind of one line proof that some given construction (such as tensor product) defines its results uniquely up to isomorphism. It is discussed on the discussion page of the wikipedia article. best, Colin [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]