* Fwd: Good article for promoting pure math research @ 2011-07-17 14:51 André Joyal 2011-07-18 6:51 ` IMPACT Timothy Porter 2011-07-18 13:31 ` an old paper Sergei SOLOVIEV 0 siblings, 2 replies; 7+ messages in thread From: André Joyal @ 2011-07-17 14:51 UTC (permalink / raw) To: categories Dear All, An article on THE UNPLANNED IMPACTS OF MATHEMATICS was recently published in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7355/full/475166a.html andré [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* Re: IMPACT 2011-07-17 14:51 Fwd: Good article for promoting pure math research André Joyal @ 2011-07-18 6:51 ` Timothy Porter 2011-07-19 8:20 ` IMPACT JeanBenabou ` (2 more replies) 2011-07-18 13:31 ` an old paper Sergei SOLOVIEV 1 sibling, 3 replies; 7+ messages in thread From: Timothy Porter @ 2011-07-18 6:51 UTC (permalink / raw) To: André Joyal; +Cc: categories On 17/07/2011 16:51, Andr=E9 Joyal wrote: > Dear All, > > An article on > > THE UNPLANNED IMPACTS OF MATHEMATICS > > was recently published in Nature: > > http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7355/full/475166a.html > > andr=E9 > > > > [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ] Dear All, Let me put this in a context for non-UK readers of this list. Various=20 bodies in the UK are asking for `impact' as part of their assessment of=20 research. This is in particular true of the REF exercise. (Perhaps=20 someone else can comment on this as well as I am `out of this', having=20 been a victim of a previous round of such `exercises'.) We all know that=20 mathematics is central to modern technological developments, but pure=20 mathematics finds itself in the position of having little direct IMPACT=20 as measured in the way that the nebulous THEY (i.e. the bean counters)=20 have defined it. We thus have that a sociologist can say that their=20 research resulted in (whatever), a physicist can point to a new=20 technical development, whilst a pure mathematician is left saying=20 `doh!'. This may have, unless watched, very serious implications for=20 category theory as between us and the areas with IMPACT there seems to=20 be a wide gulf, at least to the outsider. (When money is short, people=20 fight over what little there is with enthusiasm!) This may have also an impact on the recrutement of new researchers, so=20 someone working in PDEs is likely to be viewed as potentially having=20 more impact than someone working in category theory. (If you think that=20 as you are not in the UK then you need not worry, and that your research=20 organisations are not going to behave so stupidly,..... ) There is a wiki (at lmsrefresponse dot wordpress dot com <- and I hope=20 this is ok with the list rules about links replace dot by . of course)=20 which some of you may want to look at. The London Math Soc does not seem=20 that sure as to how to best treat the situation. (I would request, that if someone on the list wants to discuss IMPACT,=20 that they look at the lms pages first. If they go to the LMS main page=20 then to `policy' and look for impact they should find it and various=20 related documents. Please restrict attention to category theory, as that=20 is very vulnerable as quite a few other mathematicians have a negative=20 attitude to it.) Tim [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* Re: IMPACT 2011-07-18 6:51 ` IMPACT Timothy Porter @ 2011-07-19 8:20 ` JeanBenabou [not found] ` <FC1B6A43-6276-4DE0-89D8-25C68CE2C7B6@wanadoo.fr> 2011-07-19 9:24 ` IMPACT Ronnie Brown 2 siblings, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread From: JeanBenabou @ 2011-07-19 8:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Timothy Porter; +Cc: Categories Dear Tim, Your mail begins with: > Let me put this in a context for non-UK readers of this list. I think I qualify on both counts, I am a non-UK reader, and still on this list. But then you continue with: > Various=20 bodies in the UK are asking for `impact' as part of > their assessment of=20 > research. This is in particular true of the REF exercise. I'm afraid I don't know what is=20 research and REF exercise. It seems very important since you say: > (Perhaps=20 someone else can comment on this as well as I am `out > of this', having=20 been a victim of a previous round of such > `exercises'.) This importance is attested by: > We all know that=20 mathematics is central to modern technological > developments, And=20 occurs in your mail more than 20 times. Could you, or any one on the list, please explain briefly to a french mathematician what=20 mathematics, pure and applied, and REF exercises are? Many thanks, and best regards, Jean [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <FC1B6A43-6276-4DE0-89D8-25C68CE2C7B6@wanadoo.fr>]
* Re: IMPACT [not found] ` <FC1B6A43-6276-4DE0-89D8-25C68CE2C7B6@wanadoo.fr> @ 2011-07-19 9:00 ` Timothy Porter 0 siblings, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread From: Timothy Porter @ 2011-07-19 9:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: JeanBenabou; +Cc: Categories Dear All, The message got extremely garbled by having some =20 added. (I presume these were translated from one text format to another and were end of line symbols!) The term REF is a research evaluation. I quote from our HEFCE website. (HEFCE= Higher education funding council for England. It also coordinates these sorts of exercises for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.) The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the new system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. I will try to send the message again, hoping that the =20s, which I will delete, do not reappear!!!!!! Tim Thanks to Jean for pointing out the =20s! Here is the original: ______________ Dear All, Let me put this in a context for non-UK readers of this list. Various bodies in the UK are asking for `impact' as part of their assessment of research. This is in particular true of the REF exercise. (Perhaps someone else can comment on this as well as I am `out of this', having been a victim of a previous round of such `exercises'.) We all know that mathematics is central to modern technological developments, but pure mathematics finds itself in the position of having little direct IMPACT as measured in the way that the nebulous THEY (i.e. the bean counters) have defined it. We thus have that a sociologist can say that their research resulted in (whatever), a physicist can point to a new technical development, whilst a pure mathematician is left saying `doh!'. This may have, unless watched, very serious implications for category theory as between us and the areas with IMPACT there seems to be a wide gulf, at least to the outsider. (When money is short, people fight over what little there is with enthusiasm!) This may have also an impact on the recrutement of new researchers, so someone working in PDEs is likely to be viewed as potentially having more impact than someone working in category theory. (If you think that as you are not in the UK then you need not worry, and that your research organisations are not going to behave so stupidly,..... ) There is a wiki (at lmsrefresponse dot wordpress dot com <- and I hope this is ok with the list rules about links replace dot by . of course) which some of you may want to look at. The London Math Soc does not seem that sure as to how to best treat the situation. (I would request, that if someone on the list wants to discuss IMPACT, that they look at the lms pages first. If they go to the LMS main page then to `policy' and look for impact they should find it and various related documents. Please restrict attention to category theory, as that is very vulnerable as quite a few other mathematicians have a negative attitude to it.) Tim [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* Re: IMPACT 2011-07-18 6:51 ` IMPACT Timothy Porter 2011-07-19 8:20 ` IMPACT JeanBenabou [not found] ` <FC1B6A43-6276-4DE0-89D8-25C68CE2C7B6@wanadoo.fr> @ 2011-07-19 9:24 ` Ronnie Brown 2 siblings, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread From: Ronnie Brown @ 2011-07-19 9:24 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Timothy Porter; +Cc: André Joyal, categories In this context, I would like to give a quotation from the the Autobiography of Thomas Young (1773-1829), referred to in the book `The last man who knew everything', Andrew Robinson, Pearson Education Inc, 2006, p.224. "It is indeed so impossible to forsee the capabilities of improvement in any science, that it is idle to form any general opinion of what would be the comparative advantage of the employment of time in any one investigation rather than another, for almost all the authors of important discoveries and even of inventions, are led as much by accident as by system to their success." Thomas Young was the person who developed the wave theory of light, and many other things. See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Young_%28scientist%29 However the Government has long enjoined its research assessment panels to predict the future, without being completely clear on the methodology for this. All this does reinforce the good sense in trying to make clear the (current!) role of category theory, and its wide ranging influence. Ronnie Brown On 18/07/2011 07:51, Timothy Porter wrote: > On 17/07/2011 16:51, Andr=E9 Joyal wrote: >> Dear All, >> >> An article on >> >> THE UNPLANNED IMPACTS OF MATHEMATICS >> >> was recently published in Nature: >> >> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7355/full/475166a.html >> >> andr=E9 >> [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* an old paper 2011-07-17 14:51 Fwd: Good article for promoting pure math research André Joyal 2011-07-18 6:51 ` IMPACT Timothy Porter @ 2011-07-18 13:31 ` Sergei SOLOVIEV 2011-07-19 4:13 ` distributors for 2-categories David Roberts 1 sibling, 1 reply; 7+ messages in thread From: Sergei SOLOVIEV @ 2011-07-18 13:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: soloviev; +Cc: categories To all, and in particular Peter Freyd, Dear Peter, I could not find your old paper on diagrammatic reasoning (it was published in some collection in 70-es, but I could not find it via google). Maybe somebody can provide me some information how to get a copy. All the best Sergei Soloviev [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
* distributors for 2-categories 2011-07-18 13:31 ` an old paper Sergei SOLOVIEV @ 2011-07-19 4:13 ` David Roberts 0 siblings, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread From: David Roberts @ 2011-07-19 4:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: categories Hi all, ==Background== I have finally read Jean Benabou's Louvain lectures on distributors, which he was kind enough to send me earlier this year. In them he describes the following bicategories of distributors (some paraphrasing/simplification may occur, and modernisation of terms - all errors are mine): Dist objects: categories C,D,... arrows: functors C^op x D--> Set (equiv. opfibrations H --> C^op x D) 2-arrows: natural transformations (equiv. cartesian functors over C^op x D) Dist(V), for V a symmetric closed monoidal category objects: V-enriched categories C,D,... arrows: V-functors C^op x D--> V 2-arrows: V-natural transformations Dist(E), for E a regular category objects: categories internal to E C,D,... arrows: internal opfibrations H --> C^op x D 2-arrows: internal (cartesian) functors over C^op x D Dist(K), for K a bicategory objects: monads in K . . . . And here it seems to me the pattern breaks down, as taking as input the bicategories Cat, V-Cat and Cat(E), we do not arrive at any of the examples on the previous list. I understand the motivation behind Dist(K), namely that one considers the process E |--> Span(E) |--> Dist(Span(E)) = Dist(E) (E regular category) as Cat(E) = Monads(Span(E)). I'm not worried about that too much. ==Question== 1) Has anyone done any work on distributor-like constructions for bicategories that recover the processes Cat |--> Dist, V-Cat |--> Dist(V), Cat(E) |--> Dist(E)? Something like universally adding adjoints to all 1-arrows in a bicategory, I would imagine. I'm asking this in the context of the equivalence between representable distributors and anafunctors, so I suppose a secondary question is: 2) Given 1) above, is there a notion of 'representable 1-arrow' in this universal construction? Thanks, David ------------------------------ David Roberts david.roberts@adelaide.edu.au University of Adelaide [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2011-07-19 9:24 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 7+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2011-07-17 14:51 Fwd: Good article for promoting pure math research André Joyal 2011-07-18 6:51 ` IMPACT Timothy Porter 2011-07-19 8:20 ` IMPACT JeanBenabou [not found] ` <FC1B6A43-6276-4DE0-89D8-25C68CE2C7B6@wanadoo.fr> 2011-07-19 9:00 ` IMPACT Timothy Porter 2011-07-19 9:24 ` IMPACT Ronnie Brown 2011-07-18 13:31 ` an old paper Sergei SOLOVIEV 2011-07-19 4:13 ` distributors for 2-categories David Roberts
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox; as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).