From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/7285 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Colin McLarty Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Bourbaki & category theory Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 13:25:23 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: Colin McLarty NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1337707961 7775 80.91.229.3 (22 May 2012 17:32:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 17:32:41 +0000 (UTC) Cc: "categories@mta.ca" To: Staffan Angere Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Tue May 22 19:32:40 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.80]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SWswo-0000lh-OT for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Tue, 22 May 2012 19:32:38 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:43110) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.77) (envelope-from ) id 1SWswC-0000gJ-Ka; Tue, 22 May 2012 14:32:00 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SWswD-0006tb-1e for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Tue, 22 May 2012 14:32:01 -0300 In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:7285 Archived-At: Prior to encountering category theory, Bourbaki had a notion of isomorphism but no general notion of morphism. See this letter from. Andre Weil to Claude Chevalley, Oct. 15, 1951: \begin{quotation} As you know, my honorable colleague Mac~Lane maintains every notion of structure necessarily brings with it a notion of homomorphism, which consists of indicating, for each of the data that make up the structure, which ones behave covariantly and which contravariantly [\dots] what do you think we can gain from this kind of consideration? (quoted in Corry ~\cite[p. 380] Modern Algebra and the Rise of Mathematical Structures}, Basel: Birkh{\"a}user 1996.\end{quotation} On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 6:49 PM, Staffan Angere wrote: > Dear categorists, > > and also, hello everyone, since this is my first post here! I'm wondering= about the connection of Bourbaki to category theory. The copy of "Theory o= f Sets" that I have says it's written in 1970. Yet, Dieudonn=E9 famously sa= iid that the theory of functors subsumed Bourbaki's theory of structures...= and, also, Bourbaki's theory of structures is very clearly a theory of a t= ype of concrete categories. On the other hand, I've seen claims that the ca= tegorists' use of "morphism" comes from Bourbaki. So who was first? Does an= yone here know when Bourbaki's theory of structures was really conceived? I= guess this might be self-evident to anyone born during the 1st half of the= 20th century, but it has turned out to be really hard to find out for me. > > Thanks in advance, > staffan > [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]