From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/6278 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Todd Trimble Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: potential names Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2010 10:27:19 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: Todd Trimble NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1286194048 24563 80.91.229.12 (4 Oct 2010 12:07:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2010 12:07:28 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Categories list To: Paul Taylor Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Mon Oct 04 14:07:26 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.138]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P2jpE-00084a-HX for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:07:24 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:43743) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1P2joT-0007XK-JZ; Mon, 04 Oct 2010 09:06:37 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1P2joQ-0001eA-6P for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Mon, 04 Oct 2010 09:06:34 -0300 Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:6278 Archived-At: Paul Taylor wrote: > Mathematical terminology should not employ words that are merely > value judgements, without relevant content. Does "equi-unstable" have enough relevant content for you? Or do any of the proposals so far have enough relevant content for you? (I mean the pithy proposals contained in Joyal's list; there is always the longer "non-invariant under equivalence".) The quotation above seems to effectively summarize what the rant is all about; I think I can do without the judgment or projection that I or anyone else is taking "dictation from God". > Let's have a bit of imagination with language, please. Yes, let's. I look forward to other suggestions as well. > So my suggestion is that you play around with skeletons, bones > or even the Grim Reaper for something more suitable. Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't much care for it if it merely evokes skeletal subcategories -- that is only one application of the concept we're discussing. Do you have a positive contribution you'd like to make, Paul? Todd ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Taylor" To: "Categories list" Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 1:43 PM Subject: categories: potential names > Todd Trimble wrote: >> Of the choices offered here, I like "precarious", "unstable", or >> "fragile". I just thought of "risky" myself. Good, experienced >> mathematicians will know when it's okay to take "risks" (and >> will be aware of what the risks are). >> >> "Unstable" seems like a very sober choice, not too likely to >> ruffle feathers. > > Mathematical terminology should not employ words that are merely > value judgements, without relevant content. It doesn't make any > difference whether they are offensive or inoffensive value-judgement > words. This is not how we should choose scientific terminology. > > We are already cursed with vast over-use of the words "regular" > and "normal" in mathematics. Roughly translated, these mean > "the objects that I want to study" - other people may have very > good reasons for studying other kinds of objects. > > ("Stable" and "sober" already have several meanings.) > > There is a problem here in that there is nothing in the education > of a pure mathematician that teaches how to make a professional > judgement. I never thought I would find myself defending > software engineering (the religion whose creed it is that programs > are better if their authors wear suits, draw diagrams and attend > committee meetings) but when computer science students are subjected > to this at least they learn that, whatever they do, they are making > professional judgements. > > Since pure mathematicians do nothing similar in their training > they are easily mis-led by the use of terminology that is based > on value judgements. They just think that they are taking > dictation from God. > > Even if there is a very strong argument in favour of a particular > value judgement (as there may well be in the case under discussion) > we should still not use words that have no other content, simply > because we will want to make OTHER value judgements in future. > > The English language reportedly now contains over a million words. > Can you really not find anything in this vast thesaurus (=treasury) > that describes the situation more appropriately and precisely? > There is less, not more, of an excuse if you speak French, Spanish > or another language: English allows almost completely free > immigration of words. > > Let's have a bit of imagination with language, please. > > Despite the abuse that I received for it here, I am rather pleased > with my introduction of the words "prone" and "supine" for the two > different orthogonal notions to "vertical" in a fibration. > > A word was needed to replace "open" for an object whose terminal > projection is an open map, since subobjects with this property > have a habit of being closed subspaces. The rich English > vocabulary offered "overt", which means "explicit". Since I first > used this word, it has emerged that this idea is very closely related > to recursive enumerability, ie to having an explicit presentation, > so this has turned out to be a very good choice of word. > > On the other hand, I regret introducing "bilimit" and "bifinite" > in domain theory. > > In the case under discussion we need to distinguish between equal > and isomorphic objects. In existing terminology, a category in > which isomorphic objects are equal is called "skeletal", although > I doubt whether this word ever gets another outing after the > definition of a category and basic concepts therein has been > given for the first time to students. > > So my suggestion is that you play around with skeletons, bones > or even the Grim Reaper for something more suitable. > > Paul Taylor > [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]